Wrong IT specs: How it can happen fast

I was asked by a very good friend to help in coming up with a proposal/presentation for a website project. Time is of the essence but being someone who's unlikely to say NO to a good friend, I accommodated the request.

Project backgrounder

Unfortunately(fortunately, now that I think about it)I was not present at the kick-off meeting where the project was described and the parameters where laid down. I was told that there were about 4-5 IT people who gave the rules/guidelines. But the project itself was discussed only in general terms if you know what I mean. I can imagine it already, 80% of the time was wasted on technical jargons and their verbal display of business ignorance.

The guidelines were(among others):

1. xhtml 1.0-strict validated
2. must be able to accommodate dial-up users
3. ability to manage content(CMS)
4. ability to view via mobile phone (WAP)

If someone who's into doing website for a long time, this is really not a big deal. The only real challenge is to come up with something in 2 days! Long story short, I was able to come up with a mock-up design. An acceptable presentation: 7-page website, cms, xhtml-strict compliant...etc, all following the parameters they(IT) wanted.

Presentation day

Despite only 8 hours of sleep(for 2 days) I was up to face the IT people and answer any technical questions they have. Lo and behold, only 3 people were in the audience. And none of them are geeky looking. From their smart-ass comments and level of arrogance, one can easily say that Moe, Curly and Larry probably belong to marketing, PR or one of those prove-your-worth departments. We have not gone beyond our first slide when Curly said he didn't like it, because it's bland, very static and does not create "user-experience"(maybe he heard that from his wife last night in bed). Duhhhhh! xhtml-strict? Dial up connection users? what kind of experience does he wants? Blinking text, marquee messages and animated welcome gifs?

As it turned out, what they really wanted was a media-web 2-point-oh website type, branding(e.g. I googled you, or check myspace, or see me on youtube) kindda stuff. I don't blame them. I think that's good. I would certainly want to do that kind of a project. Many times, me and my friend were tempted to shout "Your IT people gave us the wrong specs!"

We finished our presentation(thank God) keeping our heads high and being firm to our battle cry..."customized development using open-source technology". I know, it was pointless.

Conclusion

The whole 45 minutes was a waste of time, for us and them. Moe, Curly and Larry have all the right to express their disappointments. They want something, have the money to pay for it whether or not it'll give any value to the public, it doesn't matter.

It also doesn't matter how standardized the codes are or how stable the back-end system is - they don't really give a rat's ass to these. In the end, no guidelines I mentioned will be followed. To the 3 stooges, it doesn't matter, as long as it works. I don't have any problems with that. My only qualm is why on earth did they let IT set rules on something they don't understand? Oh well, just one of those experiences I want to bury along with "My first public speech" and "I forgot to dress-down on Friday".