[originally at jlottosen.wordpress.com, Jan 2014 ]
Quality comes in all shapes and sizes .. like Christmas trees. This Christmas I was out selling trees at the local “shopping center ” with my oldest.Most left with a tree that satisfied the acceptance criteria – explicit as well as implicit – yet still no one came with a requirement spec…
Heuristics from the merry christmas tree salesmen:
- The tree looked at first – is usually returned to and bought
- Do A/B split testing between one or two trees
- Too many options makes selecting even more confusing
- One family’s reject – is another family’s perfect fit
- Context is important – like how much room inside, how many people, how many kids
- The closer to deadline – the less options
- No one notices the wicked branches, when the music plays and the tree is lit
- After christmas it doesn’t matter how picky you were with the details
A young person came to us looking a bit puzzled – they had never bought a tree herself, and the tree been bought was not for them. All they knew was that they had volunteered to do charity help to a down-and-out family. They wanted to purchase a tree for christmas – but could not their own home. I can only guess that this specific christmas tree was the family’s perfect tree. The cost didn’t matter to the young person at all – but the implicit value even more.
Many decisions are never about the monetary (sunk) costs. Hence your customer makes seemingly odd decisions – and that’s OK.