Written by Jenny Hagemann
Clients and development partners both fear it – the dreaded trio of Scope Creep, Change Requests and Project Delays. The goal of every project is to be on time and within budget – yet we hear from so many prospective clients that previous experience with developers has left them with little trust in a positive outcome.
Image Credit: Dilbert.com
So how do you avoid the disappointment, cost and time involved with project changes? We have seen our most successful client engagements result from two things:
- Thorough Project Discovery – a term we use for scope and project plan development
- Alignment on “Why” – both teams need to understand the criteria for success that can be benchmarked and measured
Our first engagement with a new customer begins with a formal Discovery session that serves to both detail the requirements and specifications of a project AND align on what the objectives and success criteria of the project. Simply put, if there are no defined requirements or a measurable goal for success (for example, “Our current site is ‘ugly’, we need to refresh it.”), then there is no way for either party to produce an end product that justifies any investment.
The Discovery session, usually facilitated at the client’s site with key stakeholders joining our Project Management, Solutions Architect and Account Management team, spans 2-4 days and details the functional requirements and short and long term business objectives. The end goal of the session is for our team and the client’s team to agree on a No Surprises SOW – complete with transparent pricing and timeline commitments – and project plan.
Of course, things can change over the course of a project and there will need to be flexibility. What Discovery aims to achieve is a client/partner relationship free of “He Said, She Said” and promote open dialogue and mutual understanding of the project objectives so neither team is operating in a vacuum and no one has to be removed from the project team coffee cup.
