A PM friend of mine once gave me a children’s book to read called “If You Give a Mouse A Cookie“. you probably heard of it. It tells the story of the problem you run into if you happen to give a overly active and demanding mouse a cookie.

In the story, a little boy’s one act of generosity caused him a lot of trouble. “If you give a mouse a cookie, he’s going to ask for a glass of milk. When you give him milk, he’ll probably ask you for a straw. When you give him a straw, he will ask………” And it goes on and on and on until the poor kid is completely exhausted trying to fulfill the never ending requests of the demanding and pushy little mouse.

This book should be a required reading for all new project managers as education about consequence of goldplating.

Maybe its time for developers to keep a goodwill log, for times, when the customer wants some changes without going through a change request! I often see customers ask designers and developers to add this feature, because it is a “best practice” (Oh, how I hate that term!). This is especially true with applications with a substantial user interface.

Usually, this is an issue because the senior managers in the customer organization have a different view of project success (and vendor performance) compared to the operational manager.

While performance on scope, schedule and cost is important to all, the operational manager expects the vendor to be “flexible”. All in the name of customer value.

You are right in saying that project managers have to show tough love.

Great post and on target, as usual.
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