I can't count the number of times a customer has started a brand new program/project request by asking me to implement a solution instead of solve a problem. Usually it comes in the form of, "Would you install XYZ application for us?" or better yet, "Does our environment support Ruby on Rails?"

Problem: I need to explain the relative magnitude of one project in comparison of another.

Possible Solution: Estimated Relative Impact on Resources (ERIR)

I came up with the idea to use the estimated number of person hours, money, number of people involved, and an educated guess as to the riskiness of the project to calculate a number. I call the calculated number the "Estimated Relative Impact on Resources" because it's an estimate, it's useless without comparing it to other projects therefore, it's relative, and it's designed to show the impact on the resources of an organization. When this formula is used for multiple projects (probably applied by the same person who uses the same basis for assigning the estimates) it can provide some idea as to impact of one project on an organization's resources in relation to another project.

One of the steps in a Quality Attribute Workshop is to consolidate the raw quality attribute scenarios that have been gathered. A helpful question to apply to each scenario when evaluating it for consolidation is, "Can this be abstracted without losing the essence of the scenario while at the same time covering more scenarios?"

Greylisting is "method of defending e-mail users against spam. A mail transfer agent (MTA) using greylisting will "temporarily reject" any email from a sender it does not recognize. If the mail is legitimate, the originating server will try again and the email is accepted. If the mail is from a spammer it will probably not be retried since a spammer goes through thousands of email addresses and can not afford the time delay to retry."

Why not apply a similar technique to your telephone? It could be done without much effort in this day of caller-id. Imagine if you had a device that, when plugged into your telephone line, would allow you to automatically answer the phone for unknown numbers and give the caller a message. The message could be generic or it could be instructions to do something specific. You could be program the device with a list of white listed (allowed) telephone numbers as well as blacklisted (denied) numbers. The device could give a different message based on whether the number is in the blacklist or simply unknown. If the calling number is on the white list the device does nothing, allowing standard telephonic devices to continue operating.