Comments on: Customer Expectations

By: Tim

Tim — Tue, 27 Jun 2006 21:48:17 +0000

Good advice. I have been seriously stepping up my contracting game over the past 6 months, and along with technical skills, my business skills are rapidly maturing. You could not be more right about understanding expectations, especially when negotiating contracts that are worth big money.
And yes, I think we have all been there with the ‘I cost a company $XX,000 in development and they hate the work’. Death March, anyone?

By: Marcus

Marcus — Tue, 27 Jun 2006 04:20:03 +0000

I gave a talk at my company’s annual meeting at the start of this year on this very topic with views almost exactly the same as you’ve outlined here. I was almost immediatly shuffled to a position where there is next to no opportunity to be involved in communication with the client. Hee hee.
It seems that anything other than ‘the client is always right and always knows best’ was/is an unacceptable view. Now I’m not saying you should disagree with your client or tell them what they should be thinking. No-one likes that. But just saying yes to everything without managing their expectations by working towards a common understanding of what’s involved, what changes are likely to evolve and what its going take to deal with those changes leads to a lot more stress than is necessary.
But to be fair, negotiating isn’t something that comes naturally to everyone, especially when its with the big boys. Its definately worth investing the time in learning about negotiating if you ever have to deal with a client. Good chances that they have.
Great introduction to an important topic.

By: DannyT

DannyT — Mon, 26 Jun 2006 19:54:45 +0000

‘Don’t assume every client knows what Agile or Iterative development is, nor cares.’

Damn straight man, and if the client is anyone non-technical don’t think for a minute that they want to hear any technical justifications or greatness that you are doing.

I’d go so far as to say the art of managing client expectations is as important, if not more than, actual development skills if you are in a role which requires client interaction. (Client = paying customer/boss/team leader/whoever has a vetted interest in your work)