I had the pleasure of attending Norman Nielsen Group’s usability conference in San Francisco last week, where I learned this acronym: HIPPO, or Highest Paid Person’s Opinion.
You may not know the term, but you do know how it works, I’m guessing. HIPPO is the high level manager who comes to your project at the last moment and offers an opinion on what to include to make the project a success. And you must consider it, even if the idea is out of scope, past deadline or as crazy as buying BP stock.
I was once leading development of a Web site and had to choose among several color palettes. We tested them with users, and with internal stakeholders before making our final decision — green. But it was not final, actually. A HIPPO waded in after the decision was made preferring red, and that was that. Another example. While I was at the conference I talked to a project manager who was embarking on an iPhone app simply because the boss thought it would be cool. There were a lot of those stories at the conference, actually.
To read the full, original article click on this link: When 'Highest Paid Person's Opinion' Stomps on Your Project | The View from Harvard Business | BNET
Author: Sean Silverthorne
