I often tell my clients to avoid managing (or programming) to the exception. What I mean is too often when one or two members or customers complain about how we do something, we assume that we should accomodate their complaints and change our processes (or worse yet, reprogram the database to manage it). It's quite possible the one or two complainers are outliers and we should ignore them.
I ran into an example of this recently when filling out a form online. The form was for submitting a proposal for a presentation at a conference The form said, and I quote: "Describe the session content and format. Be specific! You are limited to 100 words."
Be specific? 100 words for a session description? Be specific, but be brief!
I have no knowledge of how this form was designed, but I'm willing to bet it went something like this: "You know, last year, ONE person wrote a whole book for their session description, so let's limit everyone to 100 words."
Seriously, what logical reason could there be for limiting a session description to 100 words? Why not 1000 words? Are you telling me that the vast majority of applicants will write hundreds and hundreds of words for their description? And even if they do, who cares? Does limiting the number of words help the applicant, or the staff?
Look around your organization, especially at the rules you have in place. Are they in place to benefit the customer, or to benefit the staff?
Wes,
Your point about not programming to the exception is a very good one. However, I can confirm from experience (an annual meeting proposal system which attracts 8-10,000 submissions in a large association), that seemingly unusual word-limits can be quite necessary. Research and academic sectors can naturally require lengthy descriptions. Managing the volume of content member-volunteer reviewers must go through to except/decline submissions, complete reviews on time, and keep the annual meeting preparation cycle on track can be required.
The take-away from this comment is related to yours, the context of the analysis to differentiate exceptions from requirements is always important.
Thanks for the comment, Bob. What you write reinforces my point. If the majority of submissions are going to be huge (as in the research and academic sectors) then locking down the form might make sense. This is managing to the rule, not the exception.
In my particular case, I’m certain the vast majority of submissions are relatively short.