Visitor From Mars

Problem: As people become enmeshed in a situation, they lose perspective. Projects develop "blind spots." Assumptions gather moss, remaining unchallenged.

Context: Any ongoing situation that has aspects that only undergo scrutiny infrequently.

Forces:

Time and schedule pressure force people to focus, screening out new, possibly conflicting information.
Group cohesion often blocks out fresh points of view.
As time passes, people develop calluses, and no longer notice rough spots in a design or interface.
The risk of "getting it wrong" is high, and the consequences are muy significant.

Solution: While ComingUpToSpeed in a new situation, we pass through a unique window of opportunity during which we have a fresh, untainted view of the project and problem domain. Take advantage of this period while you're new to a project, or when new members join. Write down impressions. Note rough spots.

Formally grant VisitorFromMars status to newcomers, so that the old-timers may be more responsive to fresh feedback.

Resulting Context: Valuable feedback is captured and incorporated.

-- DaveSmith (3/8/96)

My team has had a product in QA for several years; the number of usability bugs has been very low lately. Recently we "skinned" the product for a new OEM partner, changing terminology and syntax in the CLI and terminology and appearance in the GUI. Suddenly everyone is a VisitorFromMars. After a few days of complaints (NothingWorks?) we started getting really good usability bug reports, sometimes on issues that have been present for years. Now those are tapering off again, after only a month.

The paradigm I like to apply to this is, "Why should I care?" Try WhyShouldiCare with your current or upcoming project to completely isolate the components from each other. This will give you a new perspective, you betcha.