My kids loved two things when they were twelve: Harry Potter and Jelly Bellys.  So when Jelly Belly released the Bertie Bott’s Every Flavour Beans box, we had to try them!  I mean, how awesome would Harry Potter Jelly Beans be!!!

(Turns out, less awesome than you think…)

Driving home from the store, a chubby fist from the back seat shoved a jellybean into my mouth.  “Here Dad, try this one!”  I love jellybeans, so I said “Sure!”.  It took about three seconds for my tongue to inform my brain that I’d been poisoned.  Stopping in mid-chew, I gagged out “What IS this???”

My three children shouted in perfect unison: EAR WAX!!!  HAHAHAHAHAHAH!
They thought it was funny.  I thought it was a dirty trick.  I wasn’t given all the information before I committed myself.

Fast forward one week

I’m sitting at my desk working on the development schedule when Mike pops in.  “Hey Marcus, I ran into Vince last Friday, and he told me we needed a change to the Adjustabuter.  I went ahead and made it this week, and deployed it to production.  A few other sprint items didn’t get done, but I figure they can wait.  Just wanted to let you know.  Thanks!”

Staring at him, I was reminded of that earwax jelly bean.  I felt a bit tricked.  Neither Mike hadn’t come in and talked to me, gotten PO buy off, or put it in the backlog.  He hadn’t given me any information, yet had committed himself to the change.  This had the net effect of committing me to the modification, as now I had to explain the situation to the PO and my boss.

Tasted about as good as that ear was jellybean.  Kinda pissed me off, too.

Have you seen this?

Do you have a developer who doesn’t talk to you about ideas, but instead just acts on them?
Have you ever felt like I did?  What did you do?