The frustration of trying to help

[Jelena · Accepted solution]

... so the verdict is in on "my" thread: the correct response that gave 5 days ago got completely ignored (despite my reminder); then some dude steps in, takes Raymond's response (thanks at least for mentioning that), adds the screenshots (sic!) and now finally it is very helpful to the OP. Wow...

The result:

- Raymond doesn't even get a nod (not that he needs more points, but still) except for a few "bystander" Likes

- OP did not learn how to do stuff himself

- most likely OP will be back to SCN for more spoon-feeding (not even "spoon feeding", it's more like that thing birds do when parents half-digest their food for the young).

Groovy.

[matt · Accepted solution]

Before spoon-feeding, we have mouth-to-mouth pap...

[matt · Accepted solution]

I set Raymond's answer as the correct one. That way anyone searching(!) won't be misled.

[Colleen]

I think to proceed further you must explain precisely what you are trying to do and (probably more importantly) why.

What I do find in a lot of threads that go down these routes is the person has already come up with a technical solution to a problem or requirement that they do not fully understand or appreciate.

They come to SCN to ask for assistance on one aspect of their problem but do not provide context as to what they are trying to deliver.

The experience members see the inconsistencies and abnormality of the question, pause and the question why this is a problem to solve in the first place. They questions the user who gets confused or frustrated as they don't understand why they are being challenged on their requirement when they know you can provide a technical answer. In a way, a lot of us are trying to prevent them doing harm in their system. The member may also have a manager telling them that's how they have to build (we see a bit of that) so their component is a small piece of the overall solution.

Less experienced members then jump in and suggest modules, tables, approaches, etc. They rarely mentioned the risks, limitations or consequences of going down that path as they don't always understand them. But hey, it might be useful!

Points are awarded to the person who gives a best-guess answer because the person asking for help found them helpful. The experienced people are then perceived as a hindrance

Though, on rare occasions you do witness someone stepping back and realizing they need to return to problem definition mode and get a better solution as a  result.

[matt]

I've often encountered where people's stated requirement is actually their preferred (only!) solution that they're having trouble implementing.

[Colleen]

That's another variation of it to.

They are so far down the rabbit whole they won't stop and look at different options. A bit like a bad project - people keep throwing money at it thinking they'll eventually get there and all that pain will be worth it whilst everyone else on the outer looking in shake their heads in disbelief.

[former_member186746]

I happens a lot that people don't understand that there is a difference between a requirement and a solution. They say things like.. Ok so the requirement is I need to create a program that selects table EKKO and displays the number of...

That is not a requirement, the requirement is "We need the following information regarding Purchase Orders:..."

[Jelena]

Unfortunately I see this quite a bit with the consultants (especially offshore) that they are either not capable of or are too scared to think for themselves.

E.g. once I did a code review and pointed out some items that needed to be optimized, but didn't provide specific directions. This caused great confusion - I wanted the consultants to think instead of following instructions blindly but they expected very specific guidance. We sorted it out at the end, but it took quite a bit of time to assure them it is OK for them to think and make their own decisions and even to disagree with me.

I'm not sure where/when they picked up the mentality they started with. Could be a variety of factors, including the dreaded "cultural differences".

[matt]

I once gave specific instructions for optimisation. At least I thought they were specific. What was "wanted" was step-by-step. Even to the level of, "run transaction SE24"... and somehow this is more efficient than me doing the change. It took 3 months to put in 18 recommendations that would have taken me a couple of hours. But I digress...

It turned out the offshore company's practice was to put newbies into the ABAP fixes sections and experienced people into the new projects/enhancements. Unfortunately, the newbies had never been taught anything about object orientation, so had no clue what I was saying to them. It also turned out that the "fix" section wasn't aware of the client coding standards.

This prompted a client trip to the offshore partner to address these issues. I wonder how many clients just put up with it?

[Jelena]

Matthew Billingham wrote:

I wonder how many clients just put up with it?

Quite a few, I imagine. Some just don't know how bad the programs are until there is an actual error or a performance issue. Some might get almost bullied by the consultants.

Once I had to send a program back with quite a few comments (very basic stuff like FAE). The consultant's manager went up the chain to argue that "the program works, so what is her problem?". Even got questioned if our guidelines were valid, as if we were neat-picking unreasonably on the poor consultants. (Had to run and cry on some Mentor's shoulders. ) I can imagine many ABAPers might give up after such encounter.

Same experience with things taking less time to do myself.

[JL23]

I need a second SCN user to participate in that discussion

[Colleen]

 "the program works, so what is her problem?

You get this attitude with almost anyone who doesn't do your job when you try to complete technical clean up or improvements that don't change the overall user functionality of experience. To management, this is an unnecessary overhead.

In security I've tried to convince bad role build will be a headache when it comes to upgrades and support packs. For the clients that do support packs they will try to roll cleanup in to that project. When the time comes they won't budget for the cleanup

I've only succeeded once in convincing of cleaning up bad built. And it came down to the cost - for the customer to make a role change it was taking 3 people up to 2 weeks for a job that should have taken 10 minutes. My clean up took less time that that

[kakshat]

Sorry for digressing but I can't resist expressing my envy for that consultant. What a manager he's got!

[Former Member]

"the program works, so what is her problem?"

Yes, that manager is a great role model. Not...

[VeselinaPeykova]

Once I had to write a solution proposal for a change, requested by the business, on how to determine the plant and the storage location in a specific sales order type. There was no documentation on the current set up (what a nice surprise), so I opened MV45AFZZ to see what is already there.

A long list of nested IFs with hard-coded combinations of AUART, VKORG, WERKS, LGORT, MATKL (in no particular order), then some checks for PSTYV etc.

I am not an ABAP-er, so when I saw in the first IF a check for several AUART (3-5) and MATKL (around 10) and then in the nested IF checks for several VKORG (with IF... ELSEIF) to determine WERKS and LGORT, it made me raise my eyebrows.

It appears that the operation has a lot of specific rules and they request changes to them often, so I thought of getting rid of all this hard-coding and define the rules in z-tables (they used ATP check in ERP and were on 4.6B with no intention of upgrading, so there was not much space for drastic improvements).

During the obligatory discussion on solution proposals the worst part was not the reaction of the other consultants "If the program works, what is the problem", but the reaction of the experienced in-house developer, who has actually written that logic... It was slightly more polite than 'FOOLISH MORTAL! HOW DARE YOU QUESTION THE POWER OF HARD-CODING?'

I chose not to engage in a heated argument, but I really don't understand: 'If they have already decided how to handle a specific task and do not wish to hear a different opinion, why would they ask for a solution proposal at all?'

[matt]

Very simple. The proposal should have been "adjust the hard-coding to deal with the new rules". Your solution would have meant that future logical changes to the rules didn't need a developer. The experienced in-house developer viewed this as a bad thing.

Never under-estimate protectionism. It's not something I indulge in (I've regularly worked to make myself dispensable), but for some people, it's a fear driven thing. "If I automate this, they won't need me". Whereas I think "If I automate this, I can get on with something more interesting".

[former_member186746]

Experienced in-house developer doesn't mean good developer.

In a lot of cases this just means that the person is extemely efficient in doing the same stuff for many years.

I've had my share of "Senior"-developers who instead of having over 10 years of experience only had over 10 years of experience for the same employer with the same kind of requirements and the same kind of solutions.

[former_member182550]

Tell me about it.....

And the same kind of cr*p output....

[Jelena]

Rob Dielemans wrote:

Experienced in-house developer doesn't mean good developer.

I'd say that "experienced" does not always mean "good", period. I've seen it with the consultants as well - people get lost in the team of 30 on a big project; never learn anything new; keep copy-pasting the same poorly-written program. If "experience" only consists of sitting on your tuchus for years then it's not good no matter where you work.

[Jelena]

Veselina Peykova wrote:

but I really don't understand: 'If they have already decided how to handle a specific task and do not wish to hear a different opinion, why would they ask for a solution proposal at all?'

Sadly, we see the same thing on SCN sometimes - people have their mind set already on some "solution" and goodness forbid someone disagrees and proposes an alternative. No matter whether their "solution" is good or not. Actually I suspect close-mindedness in general is the root cause of many problems in the world.

[VeselinaPeykova]

I absolutely agree with you.

After that minor incident I understood the fault of my ways and stopped suggesting such controversial ideas.

[matt]

One on project there was such a dinosaur developer. He was considered by his management, however, to be a guru. He was the only one who could understand and maintain his code.

However, this development manager (me) was part of the global organisation and able to impose global development standards. The poor dinosaur was so upset when I rejected his code at review for failing to meet standards - along with detailed critique of this design. I actually had his managers come and talk to me and try to persuade me to sign of the programs. Which I steadfastly refused to do.

Others signed of his code with "no issues found". Which didn't go down well with the regulatory authorities at audit time...

Any way, it was actually quite sad - he'd been programming for 30 years, and was still using the same basic unstructured techniques he'd learned in the first few years. A developer who never really developed his own skills.

[Colleen]

Never under-estimate protectionism. It's not something I indulge in (I've regularly worked to make myself dispensable), but for some people, it's a fear driven thing. "If I automate this, they won't need me". Whereas I think "If I automate this, I can get on with something more interesting".

+1000 to this!

100% agree but also SAP consultant are paid very well. I don't think we should be highly paid because we know how to click a bunch of buttons in the system. instead, it's knowing which buttons to press when and understanding the overall integration and impacts/consequences (including to other teams). Job protectionists who avoid sharing knowledge, documenting what they do are up there with an incompetent person.

I've had a few job interviews when I tell them straight up I'm not meant to stay for ever and I know I've done my job when I make myself redundant or you move me to a different piece.

[Jelena]

Ah, found the post: http://scn.sap.com/thread/3853075

[Jelena]

I'd vote for adding "Questions need to contain sufficient level of detail for the SCN members to answer intelligently" to ROE.

Can't find a link right now but have been a few times in a situation where the good SCN members are trying to help by asking questions but OP just repeats the same "I want X" like a parrot.

As a side note - I think you totally should exercise the moderator power on those threads. Asking once to provide more details or explain the requirements should be enough. If it's ignored - remove the thread. 99.9% of the cases such discussions go nowhere and at the end OP never bothers to provide any closure. So someone looking at the discussion in future can't even know if any of the information was helpful.

[matt]

I've often exercised my awesome cosmic power (iddy-biddy living space) on such threads. The trouble with this one is that it tickles my problem solving cells - in this case, the problem of what he's actually trying to achieve. I'm intrigued. The possibility offered by one contributor is certainly a solution, but I don't think the OP is of sufficient ability to even understand it.

Gosh darn it - I want to know!!!!

[Former Member]

Perhaps he does not know that SAP has built in option for version managment?

Perhaps he simply does not know that?

Cheers,

Julius

[matt]

I don't think he wants version management. I think he just wants to generate code dynamically. The thing is, if he's really dynamically applying optimisations requiring full versioning, then the demonstrated skill and understanding level would surely be higher.

[Former Member]

OK. I will try my luck and tell him about version management...

[Colleen]

should we all ready our popcorn?

[former_member182550]

Are you still alive ??

You know - curiosity and cats and all that.....

Rich

[matt]

I've given up caring now.

[former_member186746]

Hi Matthew,

It is nigh impossible to help someone when it is unclear what they are trying to achieve with it.

It helps sometimes if you ask them what the functional requirement is what lead them to ask this question in the first place.

In this case I'm guessing that a lack of knowledge on how transports and version work in SAP lead to this question.

cheers, Rob

[matt]

I think he's asking the wrong question. I think he just wants to dynamically generate code and run it.

Last time I gave someone an ultimatum "start providing sensible details or I'll lock the thread", they ran away...

[former_member186746]

I think he had a requirement, then did some searching and came up with a solution and then tried to make it work.

It doesn't work, so now he's asking for help on his solution.

I challenge the solution and would like to know the requirement

[Former Member]

vs ='2'  "restricted ABAP for key users...

Heh? Frustration of being a plebian enduser?  😉