Have you ever sang along to a song out loud and then been corrected over the lyrics?

Happens to me all the time! You hear one thing, and it sticks with you. In fact, it’s so common and so funny that there are websites dedicated to misheard lyrics. There is a Pearl Jam song called Yellow Ledbetter, nobody knows the official words to it. Don’t trust me? Try and find them! If you do, please share them with me.

I find this becomes a lot like Chinese Whispers. The singer sings, and we pick up random words. Some people will hear something new, or even different, to what you might hear. So, what’s the point?

Well, this got me thinking (dangerous, I know). But, if people mishear lyrics and happily sing them wrong (sometimes for years), then how easy would it be to mishear business requirements?

If we just half listen, we end up assuming what the customers wants. Or sometime between what they are saying and what we are writing, the misheard lyrics creep in. This means we won’t know that we have been singing the wrong lyrics until it’s too late to change them.

How do we fix this? How about, we help the customer write the lyrics and agree on them together. Let’s get a tester and a developer involved as well. This way, we don’t just get the words but the music as well. Collaboration is the answer! If we keep the customer in the loop at every step, we will always deliver what they want. It’s that simple, have a meeting with a tester, developer, and a BA for each block of work. This makes sure the work is what the customer wants, testable and actually doable.

Sure, you will still mishear lyrics in your favourite songs, but from now on you won’t mishear your customers.

I’ll leave you with a quote from one of my favourite songs:

“??????”- Yellow Ledbetter – Pearl Jam