Are your clients asking for a boat?

Some clients will ask me for a boat.
What they actually need is to cross a river -Ronald Shakespear

When I discovered this quote canoeing through my social stream, I was delighted by the sweet scent of familiarity. Any technology consultant worth his salt would narrate to you (probably after few mugs of beer) anecdotes of consulting engagements that went awry after painfully coming to terms with the futility of nailing down the scope and requirements in the aftermath of stakeholders' radically different world-views and expectations.

Among the ones that I have heard of, my favorite anecdote is the tale of a disgruntled Share-point Consultant. In a last, desperate attempt to break the project deadlock with the client stakeholder, the share point consultant decided to catch up for a casual, coffee chat. Sipping his cold coffee, the client stakeholder coolly asked,

"Can you tell me what is the difference between SharePoint and Skype?"

Seeing the consultant wear the countenance of a child lost at the fair, the client continued to explain, “I can collaborate with anybody in the world using Skype for free, and even call regular land lines very cheaply. Why should I pay half a million bucks for SharePoint to collaborate?”