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Dealing with clients from hell

Posted: Mon Mar 09, 2009 2:37 pm
by Jenk
Potential rats nest, I know, but we have a client from Hell. They are our main client so dropping them is not an option, as much as I look forward to the day we can tell them to go away, it's not going to happen. My temper is short as it is, and managing this client is seriously testing.

So, to cut a long rant short... can anyone recommend some reading material on how to deal with problem clients?

They are the epitome of "Want a million different things done yesterday" and "I'm going to ignore everything you have told me and go off on a tangent" client. Really, these guys are bad. They have been into Administration recently, and look like they will be there again within a few years, but we must serve them, none the less.

So yes, if anyone can, I am looking for some books, presentations, slides, websites, forums, email-lists, etc. Help please.. before I lose my sanity. :)

Re: Dealing with clients from hell

Posted: Mon Mar 09, 2009 4:32 pm
by panic!
Which behaviors of theirs specifically are you having trouble with?

Re: Dealing with clients from hell

Posted: Mon Mar 09, 2009 9:07 pm
by obama
I do not have a book on top of my head; what I recommend is:
1/ totally change your mental representation of this client; make sure from now on you are 0% personal,
2/ determine given their behavior, what is the optimal course of action at short term or long term that you can take; what I mean you said you cannot drop them, so I guess what should you do to get the most money out of them,
3/ just reading 1/ and 2/ it seems the answer is to manipulate at max; forget about what you think is right; just focus much more on making them feel good and intelligent while maintaining a reasonable flow of work going on,
4/ I guess you understand my point

Re: Dealing with clients from hell

Posted: Mon Mar 09, 2009 10:47 pm
by Stryks
There should be a law against clients like that. It has to be the most frustrating thing ever.

This is the exact reason why I have my clients sit down with me and make up a list of goals, objectives and requirements, which I then go away and draft a specific course of action from. I come back to them and we agree on tasks to be performed and milestones, at which point they sign an agreement stating that the document defines my tasks and the extent of my relationship with them. It also stipulates that variations from the agreement will be considered as separate tasks to be agreed upon independently.

For me, this gives me another handle with which to steer a client, in that a change that would be very negative will be charged at a much higher rate than something that would be good.

But from the sounds of your situation, I'd have to back obama's 1st point. You really need to accept that the client is defining your relationship (given that you can't force change as this may endanger a relationship you don't want to lose).

Hard as it is, I think you need to examine the relationship, understand what it is they want, and make it your job to provide that, regardless of how pointless it may seem or how damaging it is to their goals.

Good luck

Re: Dealing with clients from hell

Posted: Tue Mar 10, 2009 12:00 am
by pickle
The Old Testament. Some of the crap the Jews had to go through ought to give you some nice ideas :twisted:

Re: Dealing with clients from hell

Posted: Tue Mar 10, 2009 6:43 am
by Jenk
The problem we have is they are unwilling to even try out the Scrum process with us. Despite us 'proving' its success and how it would suit them (and most importantly them agreeing to all of this!) they don't want to play ball. Taking the 0% personal approach is what feels natural to do, but we have shown that to be counter-productive in all honesty. Trust is lost, instead of solving problems blame is just thrown around etc.

They keep trying to revert to the "When we say jump, you ask how high" method of development where nothing gets done (at least properly) because we are too busy with so many different things, and they keep changing their mind every 5 minutes, or neglecting to tell us what they want in the first place, etc. I was just hoping there would be some books or even just a blog on how to convince clients like this that they need to change.

Re: Dealing with clients from hell

Posted: Tue Mar 10, 2009 7:08 am
by matthijs
And what happens if you have a meeting with them, specifically with the purpose of discussing this. Be open about it and tell them the way things go now aren't working.

Of course you'll have to be diplomatic about what and how you say things, but at least it will be discussed and made clear. You'll have to make clear that if they adapt a bit more to you/ listen to your ideas more, then you will be able to provide better value and return of investment to them (don't know, just throw in some terms the managers like to hear)

Re: Dealing with clients from hell

Posted: Tue Mar 10, 2009 7:27 am
by Jenk
I've had more fun and success banging my head against a brick wall. I'm going to keep bringing it up, it the vain hope they will finally realise, but I fear they will only adopt out of the want to shut me up, rather than the want to adopt the process.

Re: Dealing with clients from hell

Posted: Tue Mar 10, 2009 8:56 am
by Stryks
What kind of issues are you actually butting heads on, if you don't mind me asking?

Are we talking functionality, methodology, or design?

Re: Dealing with clients from hell

Posted: Tue Mar 10, 2009 9:07 am
by Jenk
All of the above. The one issue that is particularly stressing me, is that we have 2 week sprints*. They acknowledge this, accept this, but don't seem to want to adhere to it. My "spies" in the field tell me that the people involved are making remarks about the process, and indirectly us, in a negative light - despite them not even having tried it out yet. They continue to interrupt us mid-sprint and keep taking things the wrong way - such as at estimation time, because of the mess of things due to these same issues, it is difficult for us to acutely estimate, so we have to compensate by allocating a block of time for problem compensation and interuptions. They then think that this 'bucket' of time is at their disposal, despite us agreeing with them that any spare time left in the bucket will be filled with technical debt (of which there is a HUGE amount, because of the way they forced this company to work in the past!)

An example - there was a problem with the product. Our product includes a Linux image and hardware. Some of the hardware was intermittent. We Spiked the investigation of the problem, and even resolved it after we discovered it was not a hardware fault, but a UDEV issue. Immediately they were asking for the new version, despite it being agreed that we do not release until after due diligence for testing etc. which had not been agreed for this sprint - and even if we had, we do not release/deliver anything until the end of the sprint unless we estimate and plan a release mid-sprint... of which, none had happened.

Then they use this as "ammunition" to complain about the process. :( Other times they just don't look after their backlog properly, and keep asking us to swap user stories in the current sprint for stories we'd not heard of etc. etc.



*What is a sprint? We estimate and commit to finishing a set amount of work every 2 weeks. Once we begin these two weeks, it is uninterrupted (save for an 'emergency' in which case the sprint is terminated and we begin a new one - i.e. we never change the current sprint, we can only terminate it) and we endeavour to complete this work. Sometimes it doesn't all get done, and we notifty at the first possible chance that it may not be completed, and explain why. Other times the work we estimated was over-estimated and we can pull in an extra story if we are 90% confident it will be completed in time.

Re: Dealing with clients from hell

Posted: Wed Mar 11, 2009 4:40 am
by JAB Creations
When I first decided I wanted to do web design I got a couple of clients, one who I can deal with fine on occasion and another that ended up only paying me a third of what initially agreed amount would be. At that point I decided to not take any more web clients.

Then I got a business partner who would do PHP and MySQL. However it took forever for anything to materialize and when positions switched he felt that he didn't need to cover our operating costs which led me to choosing between buying food or bringing my checking account up to black. I decided because of that to make sure I could do everything on my own and not depend on other people because I realized I never have been able to find anyone dependable. (not including forum folks but you guys aren't here to do my work for me any way)

Then I had an internship where I had little time or desire to learn outside of work and thus like I would remain stuck at the level I was at the time and decided if I didn't get the job I'd be no less happy then if I did.

...and about the time I got the job I decided I was going to work on my own business. So that's the path I've taken and I've had to deal with my share of people who don't know what they want or what they are doing.

I guess my best advice is to make it clear that the less effective they are in fulfilling their role the less effective you can be at getting what they initially request finished. Unfortunately I don't have any recommended reading though I think you do need to stand your ground some and be firm about requiring a higher level of etiquette from that client.

Re: Dealing with clients from hell

Posted: Wed Mar 11, 2009 6:37 am
by Jenk
Agreed JAB Creations, that is some sound advice :)

If anyone else is interested, a friend and ex-colleague of mine has recommended I look into reading material for "Collaboration" and one book in particular: Collaboration Explained by Jean Tabaka. I've only read a preview thus far (book is on order) and it looks to be right on the money :)

Re: Dealing with clients from hell

Posted: Mon Mar 30, 2009 5:22 am
by Jenk
A brief update, in case anyone is interested.

The client is till troublesome, but we have started to make lee-way. :) We've finally been able to demonstrate to them the benefits of collaboration (on their behalf) and that having a list of prioritised user stories, no matter what business project they are from, will prevent the essentially wasted time and effort of continually swapping the stories that are work in progress.

It's a slow boat to turn, but we are getting there :)