Which of the following cases is preferred?
- Yesterday, I noticed we needed to change the object names. Team, Do we have any volunteers to work on this change?
- Yesterday, I noticed we need to change the object names. Team, Do we have any volunteers to work on this change?
The good point about the first sentence is that the tense of need (past tense) matches that of the verb noticed. A native speaker has told me we should match tenses in a sentence. Here is the example they provided:
Example: I knew she was fast, but I didn’t know she was that fast!
The fact of the matter is that she IS fast, but since you were expressing what you knew (past tense) then everything that follows it is conjugated in the past as well.
On the other hand, the good point about the second sentence is that the tenses of the verbs accurately describe the situation. We still need to change the object names, so need is more accurate than needed.
I would like to get feedback from a few native speakers as to which of the following cases is more natural.