An actual conversation with a designer/developer last week:
Me: Hey man, how are you doing?
Web Guy: Frustrated.
Me: Why, watsup?
And then this is what he said:
We can build it. We can code it. We can design it. We can deploy it. We can Q/A it. We can document it. We can virally share it. We can train others to use it. And we can do this over and over and over again, but without direction it’s just all a waste of time.
Wow. I’ve heard this a billion times, and not just in ministry but also the marketplace.
Dearest leader-of-the-ministry, if you do not step up and give us a clear direction and help frame the mission and vision of our ministry on the web, then it’s all for nothing. I liken it to throwing up another geocities account with flaming horizontal rules and animated gifs.
Well, not that bad, but you get the point.
Recent conversations with frustrated designers and developers have opened my eyes about how good I’ve got it sometimes where I work and the leadership that I find myself under, but that’s not the case in a lot of other ministries.
Help your developers and designers by clarifying what the heck they should be doing because of the vision you have for your online ministry. Make it real, help sell us to it, let us know you’ve got our backs, don’t make it ethereal or deathly-ambiguous. Show us what you’d like to see happen.
And we’ll make it happen.
[Image from RaceyTay]
kevincooper says
You said it. And thanks for mentioning the marketplace. It's amazing to me to see the lack of clarity in business as it relates to a web or interactive strategy. Deadlines and budgets seem to trump clarity more often than not.
human3rror says
definitely!
AussieSim says
Which works backwards as processes would be quicker, more accurate, and less expensive if the vision/brief was outlined correctly from the start!!
human3rror says
agreed…!
Trey Bowles says
This is something that is very true in our organization. We have wicked talented designers, developers, customer care specialists and Q/A staff, but in the end they stand ready for battle with one small question. Which way do we march?
Once they are given the coordinates and are pointed in the right direction there is no one that can march better, fight harder, perform in a more excellent manner, but without that initial direction, they are like a wind-up toy that will keep running into the the corner of a large room.
This just goes to show you that we all have different talents and skills and we all have our different role to play, not only in the kingdom of God, but also the daily work place. If we each play our role out correctly, then there will be direction, there will be execution and there will be success in our ministry…all by the grace and mercy of Christ.
Coenraad says
Thanks for this. I am standing, hopefully, at the point where I will be able to go into online ministry for my church here in South Africa. We dearly need to get our internet presence sorted out, as currently, in the words of our pastor, "It sucks".
This gives me some more things to think about to discuss with then in hopefully getting it done.
human3rror says
good luck! keep us posted!
klreed189 says
Just go and read loswhits post on clarity in ministry and you can see the need for direction.
Nothing like a minister or boss telling you they want something done but they do not know what it is.
I love the response "you just figure it out and then show it to me and I will see if I like it"
I have heard that way to much and often leave very frustrated.
Tom says
I'll never forget one of the lectures I had in college (specifically, for a UI class) where the professor claimed that "Users don't know what they want." That stuck with me. Now, after working in the industry for a couple of years, it's absolutely true that users don't know what they want – they *think* they know what they want.
Over time, we've refined our process such that we try to get something in front of the user as fast as possible. As we're developing their solution, we'll do mockups and pass 'em along for feedback, then we'll iteratively refine those. From there, we'll flesh out the UI and repeat the process.
Sure, it takes a little bit of time throughout initial development, but I'd much rather spend time in the midst of the development than tacking stuff on at the end (especially when it can be headed off so early on in the process).
..and good engineering says the application code can continue to be developed independent of the UI (at least to a degree ;).
Anyway, all of this is to say that I agree that they should "Show us what [they’d] like to see happen" but I think we can help 'em out a bit throughout the process.
Graham Brenna says
dude I love that quote!
Danny Wahlquist says
Thanks for another great article, John! You are so right about the need to communicate vision clearly. I find that often in technical development, the customer doesn't think big enough. I prefer to use rapid prototyping to help them see what is possible.
human3rror says
thanks danny!