Risk management, work with the customer
Imagine that you usually wear suits, and also that you are a sample of a happy software development project manager. You are clean-shaven, you smell delicious new toilet water, the tie fits perfectly with the shirt, the arrows on the trousers are ironed out and you simply radiate correctness, confidence and optimism.
No wonder, because you got a new, interesting, monetary, but quite predictable project. Of course, it is slightly compressed in time, but you already have experience in implementing similar projects and insured against all the rough edges that you could think of. Even after the safety net, you still have a small margin of time, which according to all calculations should be enough to have time to get out, even if something reasonably unforeseen happens. The customer is a large company, this project will be an excellent line in your resume and in your company's portfolio.
Yesterday you mailed the first prototype with your comments to the client. And today you should be in the box waiting for a letter that ...
... everything you do is wrong and wrong and everything needs to be redone.
')
You begin to analyze all your previous experience and are trying to understand exactly where you made the mistake. It would seem that everything went like clockwork. You have decided that, under tight deadlines, you will first approve the interface and general requirements for the application with the client, then provide the first prototype and at the same time develop the functionality, making the client many deliveries and promptly agreeing on the changes.
Before developing a prototype, you held several meetings with a client, developed wireframes, showed, got approval, and everything turned out as a result ... wrong and wrong .
Where did you go wrong? But where, in connection with the tight deadlines, you went deep into direct planning and management of the team and did not make sure that the customer really went deep into that set of pages and functional requirements that you sent . The customer is also busy, it is about to happen something important and your project is just one of the gears, which should spin in a huge flywheel. And now, when he can look at a living example, he is well aware that this example is not at all like the sample from his head. Well, maybe just a little bit. You can, of course, enter into open confrontation, quote from the contract, take a tough stand, but all this will not lead to writing the system, the project will fail, if you make a profit, then surely it will be much less than expected, and your reputation, even in your total innocence will still be slightly stained.
When developing the internal system for journalists at the press center of the XI St. Petersburg International Economic Forum, I worked under very tight deadlines, but in general, that was enough time. And so, when I, with some advance, gave the task to the programmer to implement additional functional requirements based on the existing solution, I sent the design to the client and received a full spacing. I was perplexed, because before that I had coordinated all the page layouts! However, the fact was a fact, and it cost me several sleepless nights, loss of a part of my profits, and heaps of nerve cells. Since then, I always try to force the customer to delve into the project at all its stages, and not only at those in which it is convenient for him to do so.
How to avoid this danger? The recipe is as simple as it is complex. In any case, you will have to take the time to make sure that your thoughts converge with the customer, or at least extremely close to this. This process can help:
If you have thoughts on how else you can prevent such situations, you can leave them in the comment or give it to me personally. Good luck to you and your projects!
Original: Risk Management. Work with the customer
No wonder, because you got a new, interesting, monetary, but quite predictable project. Of course, it is slightly compressed in time, but you already have experience in implementing similar projects and insured against all the rough edges that you could think of. Even after the safety net, you still have a small margin of time, which according to all calculations should be enough to have time to get out, even if something reasonably unforeseen happens. The customer is a large company, this project will be an excellent line in your resume and in your company's portfolio.
Yesterday you mailed the first prototype with your comments to the client. And today you should be in the box waiting for a letter that ...
... everything you do is wrong and wrong and everything needs to be redone.
')
You begin to analyze all your previous experience and are trying to understand exactly where you made the mistake. It would seem that everything went like clockwork. You have decided that, under tight deadlines, you will first approve the interface and general requirements for the application with the client, then provide the first prototype and at the same time develop the functionality, making the client many deliveries and promptly agreeing on the changes.
Before developing a prototype, you held several meetings with a client, developed wireframes, showed, got approval, and everything turned out as a result ... wrong and wrong .
Where did you go wrong? But where, in connection with the tight deadlines, you went deep into direct planning and management of the team and did not make sure that the customer really went deep into that set of pages and functional requirements that you sent . The customer is also busy, it is about to happen something important and your project is just one of the gears, which should spin in a huge flywheel. And now, when he can look at a living example, he is well aware that this example is not at all like the sample from his head. Well, maybe just a little bit. You can, of course, enter into open confrontation, quote from the contract, take a tough stand, but all this will not lead to writing the system, the project will fail, if you make a profit, then surely it will be much less than expected, and your reputation, even in your total innocence will still be slightly stained.
When developing the internal system for journalists at the press center of the XI St. Petersburg International Economic Forum, I worked under very tight deadlines, but in general, that was enough time. And so, when I, with some advance, gave the task to the programmer to implement additional functional requirements based on the existing solution, I sent the design to the client and received a full spacing. I was perplexed, because before that I had coordinated all the page layouts! However, the fact was a fact, and it cost me several sleepless nights, loss of a part of my profits, and heaps of nerve cells. Since then, I always try to force the customer to delve into the project at all its stages, and not only at those in which it is convenient for him to do so.
How to avoid this danger? The recipe is as simple as it is complex. In any case, you will have to take the time to make sure that your thoughts converge with the customer, or at least extremely close to this. This process can help:
- Consistent discussion of all preliminary results, sequentially, one by one;
- Questions that will cause the customer to study the materials and reflect on them ( Look! If you follow the logic of the future application on the layouts from 8 to 12, do you not think that the final information block should be added to-o-from this data and placed just below and to the left how is it done on layout 14? );
- Control of the project by several representatives of the customer;
- Focusing on personal meetings or video conferences, rather than phone calls and electronic communications.
If you have thoughts on how else you can prevent such situations, you can leave them in the comment or give it to me personally. Good luck to you and your projects!
Original: Risk Management. Work with the customer
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/17387/
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