WELCOME TO YOUR OWN PERSONAL NIGHTMARE SOFTWARE
WELCOME TO YOUR OWN PERSONAL NIGHTMARE FREE

If you don’t swat Stirges early, your project will soon be left bloodless. But a swarm of Stirges is serious trouble. Much like its mythical, blood-sucking, mosquito-size namesake, the Stirge does little damage on its own - a little prick that barely sets you back, leaving you to wonder whether anything untoward happened at all. You may find that in a group discussion some of the conflicts dissolve, or you may have to work a little harder to disentangle what would otherwise end up destroying your project. Only by enumerating and exposing the conflicting requirements can you tame the Kraken. The instant you recognize that one arm doesn’t know what the other arm is doing, call an all-hands meeting. Plus, the Kraken is so large that it is oblivious to the fact that its thrashing is breaking the mast and crushing your crew. The Kraken sees no conflict among its multiple arms after all, more often than not, each arm comes from a different department that’s unaware of the others. On the other other other other hand - you get the picture. On the other other other hand, unresolved conflicts are likely to cause the project to fail. On the other other hand, more requirements means more billable work. On the other hand, conflicting requirements are difficult to resolve. On the one hand, you want the client to be satisfied and get the system they want. Like the legendary sea monster for which this type of nightmare client is named, the Kraken surfaces suddenly, often in the middle of a project, to ensnare you in its multiple tentacles, also known as conflicting requirements.

WELCOME TO YOUR OWN PERSONAL NIGHTMARE FREE

Please feel free to add your own in the comments below. May you have strength in recognizing, avoiding, and neutralizing them, when possible.

WELCOME TO YOUR OWN PERSONAL NIGHTMARE SOFTWARE

Here are 14 nightmare clients you may very well encounter on your quest for success as an independent software developer. Maybe an unreasonable demand late in the game burned to a crisp your chances of ever getting paid. Maybe a powerful executive suddenly rose up from behind the scenes to kill your project midway through.

Maybe the project kicked off well but took a wrong turn into a bureaucratic fog, only to die a slow death. In fact, anyone who has spent time working directly with clients has probably come across a few that reminded them of mythological beasts. Here, difficult clients can be a clear impediment to your success. Sometimes they say he wears a stovepipe hat along with his appearance, was sent to Earth as a punishment and wants company.The key to survival in a client-based profession like software development is recognizing the signals of a project heading south despite your best efforts.

When he lifts his arms, the souls of both Lakota men and women hang from them.

Walking Sam appears as a 7 foot tall man, who has a lean figure, long arms, he has eyes, but he lacks a mouth and nose. One of the beliefs in the Lakota tribe is a type of suicide spirit called 'Walking Sam' or 'Tall Man' as he is also called. Sadly, it's mostly teenagers or younger who commit suicide. If not, it's a Lakota reservation that's near the Black Hills of South Dakota and it's one of the places that help perpetuate the stereotype of Native American reservations being bad places to live due to the poverty, homelessness, crime such as rape and murder, drug use, alcoholism, child abuse, and the most infamous of the problems, suicide. Walking SamI'm sure some of you have heard of Pine Ridge, South Dakota.

Welcome to your own personal nightmare