Microblog Memes

Those are different problems, though. Or at least only slightly related.

Business people operate on a different plane. Not necessarily a bad one, just different. Not, that there's no stupidity involved, but if you dig a bit (they're often surprisingly incapable of expressing their own motivation), you'll often find that in their reality tunnel, their decision makes total sense. And from their perspective, we are just a bunch of semi-autistic nerds who can't even explain what they're doing and cost ungodly amounts of money. If we complain about a decision in technical terms, they don't understand that.

So, assuming the decision makers in your organization don't act in bad faith or are really just stupid, try to think from their standpoint. If that helps you, think about it like an RPG. If you're talking to a character whose entire motivation is money, you wouldn't choose the dialog option about what a great warrior your paladin is.

For business people the relevant metrics are costs, time to market, risks. If they come around with a new software that is objectively bad, you don't argue that you can already do that, you only need to deploy the Operator with the AbstractBusinessFactoryBuilder configured differently, etc etc. Instead, you argue, that this poses immense risks, since you'd have to redo a lot of work, which of course costs a lot of resources. Also, you could argue, that such a vendor lock in poses immense risks, since you can't really extend the software. And so on.

Don't start as being the hysterical autist they see us as. Try to ask, why this is relevant. What exactly do they think is the benefit? If they can't explain it to you, say that. You're the expert, after all. And then, give the software a chance, so your objections have a basis.

Finally, don't forget the magic of the word "no". There's a good chance, that simply downright rejecting work on a change/project will actually make some people think.