Thinking from others’ position
Last week, I was asked to give a detail developing plan for a new module. I just broken down major items into minor items and gave each minor items an estimation about the effort. Our boss replied and seems not satisfied with my plan.
After discussed with some colleagues, I realized that I made a mistake. I thought everything from a programer’s aspect. Each minor steps is described with technical details which probably our boss doesn’t care about. And from her view, probably the most important things she want to know are the target of each steps, the risk of each steps and the schedule. Only with these she could make a decision if we should put resources onto this module.
Actually, I also emphasized a point in our Toastmaster event. I said we should make clear who we are giving a speech to, what the audience want to know. These two, speech or planning, are the same thing. They are just the activity of thinking. We should think from others’ position not only our own one, so that we could make us understood by others.
