customer expectations

May 18 2009   10:00AM GMT

Vendor’s role in involving customer top management while requirement gathering phase

Posted by: Jaideep
Software vendor, Project Management, Software Project, Software Project Lifecycle, business study, requirement gathering, customer, customer expectations, software product, top management, project stakeholders, process owner, end user, software development, project completion, user level requirement, top level requirement

The most critical stage in software project lifecycle is business study and requirement gathering. Vendor has to be very cautious and careful in understanding all levels expectations from the product they are going to build for the customer. Skipping top level at this stage could be disastrous for both. As a vendor, if you don’t involve customer top management while gathering requirements – you are inviting a mishap!

Customer top Management involvement is very critical during the business study and requirement gathering phase of a software project. The expectations of top management shall invariably be different as compared to other stakeholders of the software project at customer end. Assuming that the requirements gathering from process owners or end users will be sufficient for developing software will be a misconception. A detailed discussion for capturing requirement and understanding top management perception is critically important to lead to a successful completion of the project.

At the Vendor end – the Project Manager has to ensure that besides capturing user level requirements, it is essential to highlight the benefits to the top management being proposed for them from the product. It is not desirable but mandatory to freeze top level expectations at business study and requirement gathering stage.

Mar 9 2009   10:28AM GMT

20 points for organizational self evaluation to check where it stands in Software Project Management

Posted by: Jaideep
1. organizational self evaluation, software project management, Project Management Methodology, project metrics, customer expectations, organizational goals, continuous improvement, software development, software testing, software bug, product release, process integration, project management evaluation checklist, customer feedback, customer request, innovation process, software implementation, project implementation, post implementation, project manager, project team, roles and responsibilities, on-site project, off-site project, project overrun, Risk analysis, Risk Plan, empowerment, Code repository, test case repository

1. Does a formal Project Management Methodology exist in your organization?
2. Are you using some metrics to check if this is the right methodology?
3. What is the degree of improvement required in your current methodology to meet your customer expectations?
4. What are your organization’s primary and secondary goals?
5. Do you agree that there is always a scope for continuous improvement in everything we do – be it process, method or skills?
6. Do you agree that a product developed without any pre-defined procedure has varying chances of success?
7. Do you have a culture of performing development and testing as separate activities?
8. Do you assure a bug-free product at the time of its release?
9. Do you see all your processes integrated going hand in hand?
10. Do you get your payments from customer in time?
11. Do you have a process to capture customer feedback and request?
12. Do you have an innovation process in place?
13. Do you have a post implementation review in place?
14. Are your project managers and their teams aware of their roles and responsibilities – on-site and off-site?
15. Do you have project overruns often?
16. Do you have a risk analysis and planning process in place?
17. Are your employees delighted in doing whatever they are asked for?
18. Do you have empowerment process in place?
19. Are you certain about success in your projects or is it by chance/ by luck?
20. Do you have a repository of code, test cases etc. for re-use?