Selecting a commerce platform or completing a platform integration cannot be accomplished using a one-size-fits-all approach. I’ve heard many people say, it doesn’t matter, “eCommerce is eCommerce.” While yes, this is true, the end goal is almost always to grow sales, however, it’s not all the same. After meeting with customer after customer, it is abundantly clear that having a fundamental understanding of the end user is crucial to creating the proper success criteria of your new project.

Where to start

Let’s dig in a little bit to appreciate why this is necessary.  Starting at the top – do you focus on business-to-business (B2B) or business-to-consumer (B2C)?
If you’re B2B, you likely need some key features that will enable you to easily place orders without wasting too much time typing in data or on the phone. Things like:

• Quick order entry
• Customer groups
• Tiered or group pricing (volume discounts)
• Ability to reorder previous orders
• Different shipping options (truck delivery, bulk shipping, etc.)
• Different payment options (purchase order, terms, etc.)
• Different user groups (admins, customer service, business owner, etc.)
• A platform that supports busy times during business hours 8am -5pm

What about if you’re B2C? You’ll want to focus on making your site as user friendly with easy transactions, since the marketplace is so competitive. You need:

• Easy user experience
• Discounts
• Standard shipping options
• Standard payment options
• Return functionality
• A platform that can support busy times outside of business hours or on weekends when end-users are available to shop (or during the holiday season).

As you can see, even at top level alone, there are a lot of differences in what you need from your commerce platform and ultimately your overall eCommerce solution.  The deeper you dive into your customer base, your products, your workflows, your delivery methods, etc., the more you’ll uncover about what your exact needs are.

Other things to consider

Digging in even deeper, you’ll see the user paths being defined. For example:

• Do you only use USPS, UPS or FedEx as delivery options?  Or do you need special deliveries? These choices will impact the amount of shipping you’re charged as well as how integrations or delivery schedules are created.
• Do you sell using a standard credit card or PayPal option, or do you have your own credit card and financing systems?
• How do you submit orders? Many B2B companies require quick order entry but others may also use an import process so their end customer can submit a file that includes many orders compiled together. This process creates one order, but basically has the value of many orders, which makes the successful implementation of this feature so much more important.

These are just some of the nuances of conducting your business that will help define the best solution for your user’s needs.
Ultimately, you need to understand the key differences when it comes to B2B/B2C, your business, and your different users to create an experience that your customers will find most valuable.

This is the third of a three-part blog post series based on a presentation Amanda Conway, Senior Project Manager, Commerce, at Perficient, gave at an Agile Camp in Milwaukee. (In case you missed them, here are Part 1 and Part 2.)
The topic for today’s post may be one of the most challenging for Project Managers, clients and others to truly be vulnerable enough to accept. It is all about TRUST the team. Whether we are working with teams in the same office or halfway across the globe, it is imperative that there is trust built up within the team.  I’ll be discussing why trust is so helpful and also provide some tips on building a team around trust.

Why is Trust Necessary?

Our Magento and InsiteCommerce development teams are stationed in Nagpur as I’ve mentioned in previous posts.  While this has its benefits, it also creates challenges and one of those challenges is around communication. With communication being tricky as it is, adding thousands of miles in between the development team, PM, and client only serves to emphasize when communication falls short. A high amount of trust will serve as the backbone of the project and will allow for honest and open communications.
When we have a healthy team (note: when I say “team,” I’m talking about the development team, Project Manager, client contacts, and anyone else actively working on the project), we often see that anyone can openly express a potential issue, request further requirements on a specific feature, or explain that there is a roadblock.  The team will then evaluate to determine how to best handle this new information. Everyone is aware and everyone agrees on the best course of action.
In a situation where everyone is looking out for their own interests, you’ll often see this sort of communication break down. Instead of expressing a potential issue, it may be ignored as to not cause any friction. Instead of requesting further requirements, assumptions may be made that aren’t accurate.  Instead of explaining a roadblock, it may be redirected and cause problems further down the road.
If those scenarios happen, likely the project is going off the rails and in addition to that, any existing trust erodes and the teams often result in finger-pointing on who is to blame.
This is something nobody wants obviously! So how can we build up trust so we are working as a team:

Tips to Build Trust

1. Always be respectful.
This isn’t so much a tip as it is common sense. Trust starts if you feel someone is trustworthy; if you are respectful and being open when communicating then trust can
2. Give everyone an opportunity to speak their mind.
This may not be in a daily stand-up meeting or in a large stakeholder setting, but it is important that everyone feels they have a voice. Have 1-on-1 conversations with the Client and ask them candidly how they feel things are going, are there things we could do better? Have 1-on-1 conversations with the developers and find out where their struggles are.
3. Follow through on commitments.
When you are talking to clients or team members about struggles, challenges, issues, etc. follow through on what is being done for next steps. It is important that the client, developer, PM, etc. knows they have been heard. If they feel they are being heard, they can trust that they are a valuable part of the team.
4. Accept responsibility.
This is a hard one for people. Who wants to tell someone they made a mistake? I certainly don’t. However, if it happens, own it but just as importantly – determine how to resolve it.  It is easy to forgive a mistake if there are plans in place to fix it (but also remember #3 – Follow through on commitments)!
Establishing a good trusting relationship with your team can be a game-changer so I hope these tips can provide you with some areas to evaluate on current and future projects!
What other tips can build trust within teams?

This is the second of a three-part blog post series based on a presentation Amanda Conway, Senior Project Manager, Commerce, at Perficient, gave at an Agile Camp in Milwaukee. (Read Part One here.)
Communicating is one of the cornerstones that sets a Project Manager or a Delivery team up for either success or failure. The quality and quantity of the communication may vary from team-to-team, but ultimately there are going to be several key components that help enhance a delivery. The Digital Commerce group at Perficient has a well-established offshore model that is years in the making.  While this model can be very productive it also requires special handling when it comes to communication. In this post, I will be sharing some of the PMO’s thoughts on how to best communicate with a project team that includes offshore team members. We may speak the same language and when we are discussing Magento or InsiteCommerce we have certified developers (48 Magento, 25 Insite) in Nagpur (India) and the US that know the platforms inside and out.  However, when it comes to passing a request from a client to the Project Manager or Solution Architect and then to the offshore team, special care must be given to ensure the team receives the necessary details and most importantly – understands them.
Choose the Right Method
This tip can be applied in almost all facets of doing business in our digital world.  With emails flying out in abundance and a plethora of collaboration tools at your disposal, communicating with remote and even local teams has never been easier or harder. We’ve all done it – replied to an email chain already 40 messages long. While this is communicating, there is a high likelihood it is communicating inefficiently. When communicating deliberately, it is important to think before you send. Is this message best sent over email? Basecamp? Hipchat? Slack? Skype? On the phone? Screensharing?
Choosing the right method of communicating can help your teams understand the requirements more clearly, reduce unnecessary back and forth messaging, and even help build up team morale.  It is especially important to choose the right method when working with an offshore team. Yes, the easiest way is to send an email or update a ticket or user story.  For small changes, that may be appropriate, but even better might be having a discussion over Skype.  For larger changes, we’ve found it to be more successful to have a call and share screens.  This allows the team to review, ask questions that can be answered immediately and ultimately acknowledge that they understand the requirements. While sending a quick email seems so simple the unnecessary back and forth if things are not clear will easily outweigh the minor benefits of sending an email vs. having a phone call.
Create a Communications Plan
The start of every project should include a collaboration between the different team members to identify a proper communication plan. This plan should outline how communications will happen:

• Who will be sending the communication
• How often the communications will be sent out
• What is the expected response time
• When will meetings be held and at what frequency
• Will there be interactions with third parties, if so, who is responsible for those interactions?

The creation of this plan, will lead to a better understanding expectations for all team members. From the client’s side, they will know exactly when the status report will be sent out.  The Project Manager will know exactly when there is a project risk coming to fruition.  The development team will know exactly who to contact in the event they need technical guidance.  An established communication built from the start of the project will also ensure that our clients know what to expect and since they are a part of the creation, they can help identify specific changes their business may require.  These clear expectations provide a path for easier communications for the life of the project.
A Picture Says a Thousand Words
This is one of the biggest helpers when it comes to working with an offshore team. If at all possible, take a screenshot, create a design comp, record a video of the user flow, even draw what you are looking for on a whiteboard and take a photo.  If it helps, add an annotation to the image to help call out important areas.  In our Commerce practice, it is common for our teams to take a screen recording walking through different features and functionality in Magento or InsiteCommerce to help identify a problem, provide easier trainings, and give clear visualization on the proper user-flow.  The comprehension of this type of communication is extremely high.  Without an image, the team would take your words and try to visualize the final solution.  In many cases, the write-up may provide enough detail and everyone is on the same page.  However, why risk it?  By creating the image, you are taking away the risky step of asking the team to interpret your words.  Instead, provide the final visual to them and take the guess work out of the equation!
Communication is a Team Effort
Finally when working on communication it is key to remember that it must be a collaborative, team effort. Becoming a team that communicates effectively, is not an easy task and it certainly cannot be dictated by one person.  It requires each team member to understand their role and work to achieve success. If one leg of communication breaks down within the team, all points of communication will be impacted.  It is critical that all team members are bought into the Communication Plan and understand the impacts of deviations.
The overall goal of Communicating Deliberately is to get the most out of your communications and allow the team to be well-informed and work together effectively and efficiently. This is by no means a comprehensive list of how to better communicate with your teams and each team and project is a little different and may need to be handled in a unique way. Hopefully this helps to get you on the right track when starting out a project and working with your teams to make communicate a key strength!
 
What other communication tips can help guide a project to a more successful outcome?

Amanda Conway, Senior Project Manager, Commerce, at Perficient, recently presented at an Agile Camp in Milwaukee.  For her presentation, she focused on a few key topics regarding working with Agile Methodologies while working with a globalized team and external clients.  The topics included:
Compromising Consciously – the act of making strategic concessions in order to accommodate new objectives which will ultimately lead to success
Communicate Deliberately – how to navigate the tricky environment of communicating with a global team
Trust your Team – why it is important to relinquish control and trust your team and the process
This blog post will focus on Compromising Consciously.  Often times when a new idea, initiative, process, system, tool, etc. comes up there is an initial response of “That is great, but it won’t work for us” or “We’ve always done it this way.”  These can become challenging situations whether you are dealing with an internal team or a client.  The purpose of this post is to provide some tips on how to guide the team to understand the art of compromising consciously.  The essence of compromising consciously is to work with your team, client or even yourself to understand the new change that is looming and make compromising to this change only after considerable thought has been given.  Compromise is tough!  In this post, I’ll be touching on two different areas where consciously compromising is needed: Internally when working with an agile process and externally when working with a client on an eCommerce project.
Scrum.org describes ScrumButs as “Reasons why teams can’t take full advantage of Scrum to solve their problems and realize the full benefits of product development using Scrum.”  In other words, we are customizing Scrum (an Agile Framework) to fit our needs even though it may be less than ideal Scrum.  This post isn’t intended to be an analysis of how Scrum works or should work.  Instead, we are going to look at this principle and how we can use it to better operate with our teams and our clients.
In the context of managing a global delivery team, there needs to be careful considerations on how to best work together to achieve a positive result.  Let’s consider that we are using an agile process as a delivery team.  This process includes daily stand-ups, sprint planning sessions, sprint kickoffs, sprint retrospectives, backlog grooming sessions and training.  When obstacles come up that could threaten the existing process, we need to be cautious on how we proceed.  How these deviations are identified and understood will directly impact the overall success of the change to our process.  Challenges arise when a team makes decisions solely based on what they are comfortable with, what they’ve done in the past or simply to make things easier without considering the consequences.  As leaders of delivery teams, it is important that we work with teams to understand the impact of making decisions.  To help guide your teams when you’ve identified a “ScrumBut” in your processes, it is important to dig deeper on the change.  Guide the team to understand what they are sacrificing or gaining by making a change.  Consider asking some probing questions to get a deeper understanding:

• What are we gaining by making this change?
• What are we sacrificing by making this change?
• Do our gains at a minimum neutralize what we have sacrificed?  (If the gains are much higher than the sacrifice – maybe this change should be considered a permanent change in process!)
• Can we go back to the established process in the future?

Many times after understanding the impact, the team may come to the realization that maybe it isn’t in our best interest to proceed.  However, if you have a good handle on these answers and feel comfortable moving forward with the change, then the team should proceed with the compromise and revisit during the next review to determine if this was the right decision.  Everything should always be open to further inspection, adaptation, and improvement.
This concept isn’t only applicable to internal delivery teams.  It also has a very real impact when consulting on projects with clients.  At Perficient, we are regularly faced with client’s looking to us to help them migrate their existing set of systems/tools/processes.  For the purposes of this post, the focus will be on eCommerce.  Many of our clients come to us looking for a migration to Magento or InsiteCommerce, maybe they are even looking to expand into a Product Information Management tool like inRiver.
One of the first steps when taking on a roadmap with a client is to have an eCommerce-focused elaboration session where we understand their business requirements, data, existing tools, and where they see their future state.  In an ideal world, the platform would fit every need that our client has.  The reality is, each business is unique.  While Magento and Insite do a wonderful job with a vast majority of requirements, there still may be items that need to be custom built.  In this way, a customization is a ScrumBut or a compromise to the original platform so we will be looking at ways to compromise consciously.  During elaboration discussions, we’ll walk through the features and functionalities that are built into Magento or InsiteCommerce and how can we best leverage what is out-of-the-box or possibly use one of many pre-built extensions.  Frequently, we’ll hear “That is great, but it won’t work for us”.  At times, this where we start to see our clients make a decision solely based on what they are comfortable with or have done in the past.  Our job as eCommerce consultants is to help our clients understand how they decide to proceed will impact the user experience, implementation, budget, future training and future development.  In some cases a customization may be necessary to get the desired functionality, in other cases, the client may instead want to modify their internal process to fit the standardized platform they are moving to.  I want to call out, that customizations are not a negative thing, but they should be used thoughtfully.
We will want to guide our clients through these conversations by asking similar questions as before:

• What are we gaining by customizing this feature?
• What are we sacrificing by customizing this feature instead of using out-of-the-box functionality?
• Does this gain outweigh the sacrifices we will have to make?
• Is there a plan to move to out-of-the-box functionality in the future?

Asking these types of questions will help our clients dig deeper and understand the short and long-term impacts of these decisions.  In many cases after this analysis, a customization is identified to be beneficial and necessary to their business. The key is to understand where you are compromising and why you are compromising – this will ultimately lead to a higher degree of success for you, your team and your projects.  Happy compromising.