Peter Seale's weblog

In a previous post, called Thinking Creatively, I asserted that in SharePoint, "we are forced to think creatively" in crafting solutions. Like when someone asks you to create a custom web part on the intranet home page to do employee search in SharePoint, you are supposed to say "hey, aren't you really asking for People Search?" And the idea is that you would then work with your customer to find the real solution to their problem, not just blindly follow directions. Maybe People Search works for them, maybe you end up writing a custom web part or configuring SharePoint's search. You solve the real problem.

Well, I was wrong.

If you remember to do so, you'll think "out of the box" in  "dynamic way" and "harness the synergies" et al, as mentioned in the scenario above. But if you forget, if you slip up, guess what?

Or what happens if your client is belligerent and wants it done their way? FYI for everyone who knows me, I'm not saying this is my client :), but have instead heard secondhand about these situations.

Bad times.

In Summary

Remember to argue with your customer! This is a fundamental aspect of any project, whether it's SharePoint or not--it just happens to sting more (a lot more) in SharePoint when you're forced to follow strict requirements.

I'm not saying you should add a "fistfight" bullet point to your next customer meeting agenda--or maybe that's not such a bad idea after all! Treat your meeting like a boxing match: instead of doing bullet points, say "ROUND 1: do we really need to brand SharePoint?" and "ROUND 2: Can we change the way this app "runs in SharePoint"?" Set the Outlook meeting location to be "THE OCTAGON". Bring a metal folding chair and lean it next to the door, in case someone needs some extra "chair therapy" across the back. Go wild, it's your meeting.