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It is frustrating to work with visionless clients who do not take the planning stage as seriously as they should. They make small and vague contributions in the beginning and then turn around and request huge detailed modifications during development and testing, usually causing developers to waste alot of their time and energy while they're figuring out what they want to do. Poor planning is not only frustrating for developers, but it compromises the quality of the product. The point of a plan is to know exactly what is expected to come down the road, and consequently optimize the product and production processes.
The other problem with planning with clients is that sometimes they insist on certain things, interfering with the expertise of professional developers.
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I think you've met some (all?) of my clients!!!
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Can take forever!
Rocky Moore <><
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Getting done with the requirements of a project, getting 75% done on a fairly complex project and then getting switched to another project long enough that you forget most of the stuff you on your previous project. Then you get switched back to the original project that's 75% done and are asked to get it done ASAP. Oooooooooo.
Todd Smith
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Debugging is the devil. As Peter Mares said in his signature:
99 little bugs in the code, 99 little bugs,
Fix 1 bug, recompile....
101 little bugs in the code...
Need I say more? 
~DaN
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In this case, if we do a custom application for a client, we do all of the deliverables and make sure that everything works as expected (even to sit at a client's site and make SURE it works), only to have them keep calling and calling and calling and calling and (ok, you get the hint) for things that weren't even in the original scope to begin with.
You don't necessarily want to tell the client "Hey, you aint paying for it, I can't help you" because you might get more custom work form them in the future. But you really want to tell them to put up or shut up.
That's what bothers me the most.
Nick
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The most stressful part of the project surely must be dealing with the boss and keeping them happy!
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I personally voted for maintenance and upgrades, for the same reasons that Marc Clifton has spoken out in his thread[^].
As for to management I could not resist and pasted in an excerpt from Programming fun page[^] of Matt Pietrek's site[^]
Information Passing
Programmer to Team Leader:
"We can't do this proposed project. **CANNOT**. It will involve a major
design change and no one in our team knows the design of this legacy
system. And above that, nobody in our company knows the language in which
this application has been written. So even if somebody wants to work on
it, they can't. If you ask my personal opinion, the company should never
take these type of projects."
Team Leader to Project Manager:
"This project will involve a design change. Currently, we don't have any
staff with experience in this type of work. Also, the language is
unfamiliar to us, so we will have to arrange for some training if we take
this project. In my personal opinion, we are not ready to take on a
project of this nature."
Project Manager to 1st Level Manager:
"This project involves a design change in the system and we don't have
much experience in that area. Also, not many people in our company are
appropriately trained for it. In my personal opinion, we might be able to
do the project but we would need more time than usual to complete it."
1st Level Manager to Senior Level Manager:
"This project involves design re-engineering. We have some people who
have worked in this area and others who know the implementation language.
So they can train other people. In my personal opinion we should take
this project, but with caution."
Senior Level Manager to CEO:
"This project will demonstrate to the industry our capabilities in
remodeling the design of a complete legacy system. We have all the
necessary skills and people to execute this project successfully. Some
people have already given in-house training in this area to other staff
members. In my personal opinion, we should not let this project slip by
us under any circumstances."
CEO to Client:
"This is the type of project in which our company specializes. We have
executed many projects of the same nature for many large clients. Trust
me when I say that we are the most competent firm in the industry for
doing this kind of work. It is my personal opinion that we can execute
this project successfully and well within the given time frame."
Regards,
Zdenek
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Oh yes!
My damn boss doesn't understand what he's asking for. When I explain him why that's slow, or why my work is fine : he runs away!!!
And well... He's never happy with me!  :p
Signed Twofy.
There's only 10 kind of people : those who know binary and the others
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It looks like this is the front runner for hated project tasks across the board. No wonder most software released these days is more trouble than it's worth!
"Please don't put cigarette butts in the urinal. It makes them soggy and hard to light" - Sign in a Bullhead City, AZ Restroom
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If you look at my thread below[^], you'll see that it's not the testing and QA itself that bugs some of us, it's what happens during that phase. I actually kind of like the testing and QA itself. I'm rather proud when my stuff starts behaving robustly and doing what it's supposed to.
Unfortunately, when the product is in the testing and QA phase, the money people think it's 'real', and they can start shipping it. Then they whine when you get support calls for stuff that was shipped early.
Software Zen: delete this;
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One obvious conclusion:
Most of us enjoy the development phase 
- Nitron
"Those that say a task is impossible shouldn't interrupt the ones who are doing it." - Chinese Proverb
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If we didn't, we'd all be managers or in a different profession all together.
"If you just say porn then you get all manner of chaff and low grade stuff."
- Paul Watson, Lounge 25 Mar 03
"If a man is standing in the middle of the forest speaking and there is no woman around to hear him, is he still wrong?"
- Anon
Jonathan 'nonny' Newman
Homepage [www.nonny.com] [^]
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There seems to be a universal expectation out there that our stuff should be so good that they don't need to read the manual or even the on screen 'hints'
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Because the bean counters are yammering at you "Can we ship it yet?", and some salesperson says "I promised this to XYZ Corp. for the end of the week!" and your boss asks "would adding some more people help?" and your coworkers say "did you fix that problem in my stuff that your stuff was causing yet?"
Grrrr... 
Software Zen: delete this;
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Don't forget all the useless last minute extra features that have to be squeezed in during the testing/QA phase. (Can't wait for an interim release, oh no, have to be there now - even though not a single customer has asked for them, they just look cool ... )
double Grrr....
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Picture it. Salesperson walks into engineer's office. "If you can give me feature X, I can sell a hundred of these, and we'll all be rich!".
(time passes)
Engineer, tired, sweaty, and dusty from the road, delivers feature X. Salesperson yells, "What the h*** is this s***! I don't need this! I've got to have feature Y, or we're all going to diiiiieeeee!" Engineer, stunned and incredulous, says "but you said you could sell a hundred of these, and we'd all be rich." Salesperson, with an expression of scorn, "But that was only a _prospect_. You didn't actually think we'd sell those, did you?"
Engineer struggles mightily to restrain the fist-of-death...
Software Zen: delete this;
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Take a deep breath...
and let if fly!
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Even worse when the sales guys say "we have to ship it now, and sod the testing", then next week when a hideous bug comes out they turn around and start screaming that we let them release faulty software, and that we have to have a fix ready to go out next day.
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I opted for maintenance and upgrades, because while the money's good, I get frustrated maintaining old products instead of moving on to developing new products with new technologies and using the things I learned from the old projects. In fact, if you look at my corporate career, the #1 reason for changing jobs is "the product got done and I was stuck in maintenance mode". And frustration causes a lot of stress--Do I move on? Do I wait for marketing to dream up another product? What's the risk vs. personal satisfaction factor? It's really stressful for me. I'm in maintenance mode right now on two different products and it's driving me nuts. Thank god for the diversion of CP.
Marc
Help! I'm an AI running around in someone's f*cked up universe simulator.
Sensitivity and ethnic diversity means celebrating difference, not hiding from it. - Christian Graus
Every line of code is a liability - Taka Muraoka
Microsoft deliberately adds arbitrary layers of complexity to make it difficult to deliver Windows features on non-Windows platforms--Microsoft's "Halloween files"
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Marc Clifton wrote:
I get frustrated maintaining old products instead of moving on to developing new products with new technologies and using the things I learned from the old projects
Same here, well said Marc.
Paul Watson
Bluegrass
Cape Town, South Africa
brianwelsch wrote:
I find my day goes by more smoothly if I never question other peoples fantasies. My own disturb me enough.
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Marc Clifton wrote:
I opted for maintenance and upgrades, because while the money's good, I get frustrated maintaining old products instead of moving on to developing new products with new technologies and using the things I learned from the old projects.
I understand that,
Some stats I have seen on SDLC is that over 80% of a coders coding life can be spent on this.
I wonder if in the initial Development it would be an Idea to add in a far more easier pre-refactoring system then most of us use at the moment (zero).
Unfortunately just like creating comments and bookmarks this means more time might be necessary in the design stage.
Maybe .NET might make this easier when I finally move to it.
Regardz
Colin J Davies
Sonork ID 100.9197:Colin
Warning Link to the minion's animation, do not use.
It's a real shame that people as stupid as you can work out how to use a computer. said by Christian Graus in the Soapbox
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Colin Davies wrote:
to add in a far more easier pre-refactoring system
I like that idea. You know what I'm going to say it makes me think of! But, what does this mean to you? What is a "pre-refactored" system? How would it work?
Marc
Help! I'm an AI running around in someone's f*cked up universe simulator.
Sensitivity and ethnic diversity means celebrating difference, not hiding from it. - Christian Graus
Every line of code is a liability - Taka Muraoka
Microsoft deliberately adds arbitrary layers of complexity to make it difficult to deliver Windows features on non-Windows platforms--Microsoft's "Halloween files"
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