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Demanding Darren
Welcome to the 9th pen-portrait in our series about different types of internal clients.
The personDarren will typically be in a middle level post – possibly a Marketing Executive in the Communications department. He may be a hard worker, whilst not being particularly intellectual – he just gets on with the job without really thinking. Although he’s generally nice and well meaning, he can also get quite annoyed if he feels that he’s being fobbed off.
The problem
Unfortunately, Darren makes constant demands on your time: he turns up wanting bits of information and needing work to be done. Although his demands may seem to be perfectly reasonable, responding to all of them will use up a disproportionate amount of your resource. You want to be responsive and to provide a good service, but you also have a range of other priorities.
The solution
Once you begin to understand Darren, you can start to be honest and direct with him. Firstly, you need to look at the way in which he works and the types of requests he makes. You can then think through how you could mitigate his demands.
For instance, if he just doesn\'t think of things at the right stage in the project, you can suggest a planning meeting with him to sort out what information he will need, and when. You may be able to eliminate many potential requests by making more information available to him – perhaps online, or by giving him access to your library – so that he can find things out for himself.
You could also just have a straight conversation with him. Try using our ‘SCQA’ approach to outline the problem and your proposed solution, and to get him on side:
Situation: He has numerous information needs – all of which are perfectly reasonable.
Complication: You have limited resources to service his needs, so you need to use them efficiently.
Question: How can you provide him with all the information he needs, but in a way that makes much lower demands on your time, and ideally helps him to get the information even quicker?
Answer: Better planning of requirements, and handling his needs more efficiently by providing regular access to some of the most frequently required information. Ask Darren to try to predict any remaining needs so that they can be dealt with in one go.
Make it clear that you\'re not unwilling to service his demands, but that a lot of little demands are very time-consuming and inefficient. He will get a better service if he thinks things through, then provides a suitable set of requirements all at once.
