customer

Customer’s role in business study and requirement gathering phase of a software project

Usually it is the customer top level person who is project sponsor for a software development project, be it in-house or from a software development vendor. A Project Sponsor may presume that his/her roles during the project would be – sign agreement and papers, assign roles down the line for the project, monitor/review project at various stages etc. A critical and crucial role is overlooked that of getting into the project especially during atleast vendor’s business study and requirement gathering stage. It is not only important for project sponsor and directors to be part of this stage but equally important is to involve all top management in that.

In brief, Customer Top management has to fully understand the benefits being proposed by the vendor that will be produced by the software when it is in use. They should also participate fully in business study and requirement gathering meetings to define and freeze their own expectations from the project/product/software/vendor.

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

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.

Dear Project Manager – your “faith” in 5 pillars of project can get you miraculous success in any Project

I remember a small inspirational story read somewhere recently. A small girl took all the money she had in her piggy bank and went to a nearby drug store. The drug store owner was busy on a phone, and the girl was waiting for him to get free at the earliest. As she got desperate she interrupted the owner – “excuse me – I want to buy miracle, how much it costs?”. The owner kept on talking over the phone with giving an ear to her. She repeated the same again, this time in a raised tone. Owner told her as he is busy talking to his brother staying in a far country after a long time. The little girl literally had tears, helpless as if she wanted something urgently. Another man was standing inside the shop. He got curious by what the girl had asked for. He asked the girl – “what do you want?”. She said I want miracle, and I have money for it. “But what do you need it for” – the man asked her. “My brother is very seriously ill, and my mother says only a miracle can save her” – she replied. The man was the most senior neuro-surgeon of the country. He accompanied the girl by saying – ok, I have the miracle, let us go to your house to see your brother. The boy was operated free of cost and got well. The total cost of operation was “FAITH” of the little girl and some dollars she had in her piggy.

Like the little girl, the project manager has to have this tool with him all the time to win over any situation and to gain success in any project. The 5 pillars of the project where a PM has to put his total faith into are:

5. Customer: The customer is the on whose money your organization, management, your teams, and you exist. Your faith in customer has to reflect in all your discussions, communications, deliveries and product. Chose your words very carefully when you are in front of your customer or even when you are having an off-hand communication through phone conversations, emails etc. Your actions speak louder than your words. So take care of your gestures and bod language too.

4. Management: Your management is banking on you for the building and delivery of the product. Don’t mingle facts with over-enthusiastic assumptions when you present the project report to your management or to your customer. Be realistic and conservative in presenting the facts and projections.

3. Team: Don’t divide your team into doers and non-doers, slow and fast runners, perfect and imperfect. Labels regarding the individuals once set in your mind will drastically and adversely affect the project. Trust them in the same volume as you want them to trust you.

2. Processes: Whatever processes and procedures you adopt for project management, follow them ethically, trust them and they will deliver you the best.

1. Self: This is the prime factor. If you don’t have this, if you don’t trust yourself, you will not be able to adhere to the 4 points mentioned above. You can (deliver your best) only if you think you can.

Miracles do happen but only buying coin is TRUST.