The one I get constantly is we want "custom reporting". Well what the hell is that really? Why, why, why do you need that? Then I just build a new feature they will actually use and defer "custom reporting" for another month.
I worked with a guy who specialized in custom reporting tools and pipelines. He said that a majority of the time people are asking for custom reporting tools, it’s because the app’s built-in tools for sorting/filtering/aggregating data aren’t answering the questions they are asking.
Now whenever someone brings that up, I ask “What question are they wanting the answer to?”. It usually leads to either a new feature or just clarifying where that question can be answered. Looks like you’ve caught onto that same school of thought.
Sometimes people just want to feed data into their own warehouse so they can query data across different pieces of software, or they are too stubborn to get to the bottom of what question they’re trying to answer.
I see this all the time... custom reporting, reports... I have seen this so many times in so many places and I wonder why the fuck are people asking about it. Most of the time they have little clue of what they want reported, or how they want the data to look like. Nearly 100% of the time what they mean by reporting is "join all the tables that have a foreign key, force join all the ones that do not have a foreign key by using a union against some arbitrary value picked at most-likely-to-be-the-right-one and dump everything on an "excel spreadsheet". This is the golden standard most people go by.
Or as I like to say “the best way to launch is to cut features”.
As an engineering leader you’ve got to advocate for it against product/design all the time.
The one I get constantly is we want "custom reporting". Well what the hell is that really? Why, why, why do you need that? Then I just build a new feature they will actually use and defer "custom reporting" for another month.
I worked with a guy who specialized in custom reporting tools and pipelines. He said that a majority of the time people are asking for custom reporting tools, it’s because the app’s built-in tools for sorting/filtering/aggregating data aren’t answering the questions they are asking.
Now whenever someone brings that up, I ask “What question are they wanting the answer to?”. It usually leads to either a new feature or just clarifying where that question can be answered. Looks like you’ve caught onto that same school of thought.
Sometimes people just want to feed data into their own warehouse so they can query data across different pieces of software, or they are too stubborn to get to the bottom of what question they’re trying to answer.
Give them an API with the data so they can get create their own reports. Maybe even charge them per hour to create the custom reports.
I see this all the time... custom reporting, reports... I have seen this so many times in so many places and I wonder why the fuck are people asking about it. Most of the time they have little clue of what they want reported, or how they want the data to look like. Nearly 100% of the time what they mean by reporting is "join all the tables that have a foreign key, force join all the ones that do not have a foreign key by using a union against some arbitrary value picked at most-likely-to-be-the-right-one and dump everything on an "excel spreadsheet". This is the golden standard most people go by.
It’s hard decision, but it has to be made.
I’m not building space elevator.
Yes. Don't succumb to featuritis. Destroy the barnacles.