Client Interaction key to success

In continuation to one of my blog on communication tips, I'm trying elaborate little to more on the aspects related to client interaction.

In our day to day to business activities irrespective of industry we tend to interact with the client or client representatives many many times. I'm just trying to put across some tips which might be useful for people who are new to client interactions.

Start the conversation by thanking him for providing his valuable time. This may not be necessary if you are meeting them often.

a. Listening what the customer says

Always listen to what the customer is trying to say, please don't run the process in back of your mind about what to respond, be patient and listen to what the customer's intent ? what is he trying to say? what are all the expectations? so on and so forth.

b. Notes very important

Make short notes of the important points you discuss with him, always try to have a pen and paper handy with you when you are meeting the customer, the customer might be giving inputs on his requirements, changes, concerns, issues while you interact. You need to take good note of that and deal it with care and communicate accordingly.

c. Make the right response

Always try to respond in patient manner, please don't commit something which you are not responsible for. Seek additional time when you are supposed to respond to such questions. You response needs to concise and precise. 

d. Summarize

Try to summarize the overall conversation you had with him to outline the action items on both the ends. That will help the customer to have a clarity that you tried to understand his requirements and very caring towards your views.

Last but not the least, if you don't have the time to summarize your understanding followup him with your email outlining your understanding on the meeting.

Tips for Effective Project Communication

1. Be a active listener
Listening to the discussion, meeting, telephone call with perserverance. You be the person whom you want to be at the transmitting end, so make listening a good habbit.

2. Make notes while listening
Try to make notes while listening, that helps you to recollect later once your done with your communication. Notes will be helpful to understand the aspects of communication.

3. Review and summarize
Please review the notes and sum it up. Make necessary interpretations on the understanding of the communication you had.

4. Communicate back
Communicate back your understanding, by documenting your view and interpretations. Outline the thoughts first and proof read the documents effectively.

Need for Project

Many times we don't know or analyze why we do certain things? Later on we analyze those. Many times we are part of the project we do our daily work on the project but we never bothered to ask why do this project? Whats the reasoning behind the project. Petty isn't?

In this blog we will discuss on the various reasoning behind the project according to PMI and also we will see some examples of the same. The below given picture represents my own way of seeing the reasoning behind a project:

We will see more about these needs with some examples. Keep visiting.

Setting our project objectives - III

In my previous posts we have discussed on what is project objectives and how to set them up using SMART. In this post we will see how the concept DISCO would be applicable in setting project objectives.

Rationale:
When we move on to create an project objectives, its not only we should get convinced about our ideas  but also our team. Its then the synergy is created to work towards the goals/objectives together. The concept of DISCO advocates the strategy more similar to SMART but with more emphasis on team work. 


DISCO:

Detail Specifics:

1. Be specific on what you want.
2. Probably have an work breakdown structure.
3. Help the team members to understand the specific you understood.

Include Qualitative and Quantitative Measurements:

1. When you start setting the objectives check whether its measurable or not. 
2. Ensure you have the following characteristics towards Qualitative and Quantitative measurements:
1. Qualitative: Measurable by standards (Defect Ratio, KPIs) more towards Quality
2. Quantitative: Resources, Timelines, Budget related measures

Seek Consensus:

1. Always seek consensus from your team on the objectives
2. You can force the team to follow your objectives until or otherwise they have the buy-in on your objectives
3. Seek to be understood and also make others understand

Creating Reasonable approach:

1. Be reasonable and justifiable on your approach
2. Don't set unrealistic targets and later on postponing them
3. There is a possibility of conflict in this area because perspective changes among people

Operate in methodical time frame:

1. Always have time strings attached to your objectives
2. Let the entire team be aware about the timelines
3. Create an schedule around the timelines

Example of such objective:

a. Creation of an micro controller based Attendance tracking system with in 2 months which includes key functionalities such Swipe Cards, Daily Attendance Reports and Solar powered system with defect ration <5%.

Setting our project objectives - II

In my previous blog we saw about the difference between goals and objectives and how they are significant. So the typical two areas in general people suggest about setting objectives are
a. SMART
b. DISCO

We will see about SMART in this Blog:

a. SMART
S - Specific M- Measurable A-Achievable R - Realistic and T - Timebound

Specific:

So any objectives we have must be specific and focussed. It needs to be well articulated and clear to the point. Otherwise we can use the term "well defined".  Probably  the the following questions would help in doing the same: "What", "Why","Who", "When","Where", "How".

Measurable:

If you are objectives are not measurable how you will determine that you have actually achieved that. An measurable objective will help you to tell whether you are in the right path because its measurable.

Achievable:

There could be resource constraints, time constraints and many constraints which may make your task unachievable, so before determining your objective you decide whether its achievable or not. There is no point in having an objective which is not at all achievable.

Realistic:

The objectives should be in context with your goals. Its cannot be maligned with the goals. Its critical that your objectives are falling in line with your expectations of your goals fulfillment.

Time bound:

Any objective should be time bound, if it is not probably you have would not make any significant impact on your goals.  Ensure your objective is having an deadline to achieve. If not achieve review the date, but having an objective without an specific deadline is dangerous.

In my next blog we will discuss about DISCO, even though they are very similar to SMART having an exposure to the same would give an alternate perspective.

Setting our project objectives - I

Objectives:
I think doing an project without project objectives is more or less like shooting at random.

How do we go ahead and set our project objectives:
Its always important for you to understand that in general project objectives are more an detailed statement in nature, and it directly helps to satisfies need or desire. Primarily its derived from the Goals which are more strategic nature.

Examples for goals: I want to buy an cycle, I want to implement ERP for my organization, I want to construct a Bridge over river for my people, I want migrate my COBOL app to Java App due to high maintenance cost.

These examples mentioned over are here can be more like desire because the "I" term being used. In general its a person intention/goals turns into project with acceptance of the concerned stakeholders. It turns out to be aspiration of the organisation further.To achieve the goals the objectives could be broken down to multiple parts
.
In the example of buying an Bi-Cycle, this goal can be derived with the following objectives a. Save Money/Budget Money b. Select and buy

Widely there are two methods being adopted for setting the right objective they are a) DISCO and b) SMART

We will see them in little more detail in my next Blog.

CMM Implementation challanges and benefits

Its quite long time since I wrote an blog, I recently came across CMM related stuff which is to be adopted to the project. I would like to share some of my thoughts here in that respects. Before I venture on to the challanges in this blog I would like to give the benefits which you would reap out of this implementation, please note that project can succeed with out these methods also. If you are very new to the CMM and looking to thing into perspective then probably this could help.

Benefits:
a. You would know your objectives clearly (Prefer to follow SMART)
b. Helps you to determine the critical success factors for your project
c. These critical sucess factors could be highly quantified with an specific time,cost and quality factors/metrics.
d. Helps you to identify the risks/issues and helps to proactively mitigate them provided you to proper reviews.
e. At any point of time during the project if you have an doubt whether you are in the right track see that each and every step you take in the project helps you in point a or point b.

Challenges:
a. To rigoursouly follow the documentation process needs time and efforts.
b. Determining the metrics to be followed would be difficult to benchmark if you dont have an history.
c. It cannot be merely an process it has to be incalculated with in your team members as culture.
d. Need to see the feasibility of applying the same in small projects, need to come up with minimal version of the same, probably could be an tailored one.
e. In the case different models practiced across organization, would pose an challange for the QAs to manage it.
f. Auditing is essential otherwise you'll never know whether you are on the right track even though you follow CMM.

Do drop your comments, if you have any.

Project Management @ Customer Site - Part II

Man is so made that when anything fires his soul, impossibilities vanish."
- Jean De La Fontaine

Continuing the yesterday's blog on Project Management @ Customer site.

Before continuing further you must understand that you are not consulting the client or customer as a person, rather you are representing an Organisation and always the organisation is behind there to support you.

"Understand that You are not on your individual capactiy and you are representing your organisation."

4. Communication
Clearly understand the communication channel and escalation levels. Use all modes of communication such as Direct Interaction, Telephonic Conversation, Emails, Meetings, Discussions etc., Try to interact with End Users and ask them their problems so that they will be free to share their knowledge base and don't commit or expose the product during these discussion. Make sure you complete the informal discussion with a nice note in an friendly manner. When End Users are not-cooperating due to their other works or busy schedule try to re-prioritise your activity to their needs at times to show that you are flexible enough and support their needs. (Make sure you dont do it regularly).

Whenever there is a need for escalation do the escalation to the higher ups. Dont escalate for small issues.

5. Politics
Unlike our government politics dont get too much into it. But its good if you can understand the politics of the organisation to get the work done. It would help you understand people very much. (After all Implementation is about selling our product with post sales support)

6. OffSite Co-Ordination
When ever you communicate a problem to the offsite, be very clear and define the problem with examples becoz offsite people doesn't know the scenario underwhich you have faced the problem.

Do prioritize your requirements to the offsite team so that they can work on your priorities. Do Keep an excel sheet fo r this activity which would be very handy. (Dont forget to add an remark column which emphasises the reason for priority). Dont expose any offsite members to the customer, which will enable the customer to lose confidence on you and rather create problems at the off site.

7. Professional Ethics

Try to be polite during your discussion. Dont use unparlimentary words even offline with the End users or any person in the client. Do follow the dress code of your organisation. Do follow the Customer Shift Timings and be punctual. Dont misuse the client resources such as Phone, Papers, Internet, etc., Do take permission on using the necessary resources if required.

Project Management @ Customer Site - Part I

Project Management at Customer Site seems to be a night mare for many new commers in to this field and also to the experienced ones at times.

"I'm the customer, you deliver me what I'm asking for"

This statement will tell you how annoyed a customer will be when his expectations are not met. Managing customer at customer site is like meeting the lion at lions Den. You dont have worser scenario than this if you dont have a history of please experience with the customer you have met so far.


No worries, see the below given quotes by unknown:

"To my customer"
I may not have the answer, but I’ll find it.
I may not have the time, but I’ll make it.


Being at Customer site the Implementation consultant and software engineers needs to follow very small things which can make the customer happy.

You have to make sure you have the following information before you go to the customer site for the implementation.

1. Project deliverables
What is to be delivered. A Product with what features. What is their expectations on the product ? What is the history pre-sales communication between the customer and the organisation. What are all the modules to be delivered

2. Scope of the activity to be done
What you are going to do there. Training, Implementation, Mapping of the requirements in the product, Data Migration. Be aware of the activity going to be dealt there. Try to get acquainted with the necessary techniques in handling these activities.

3. Understanding Customer Business
Basic understanding of business being done by the customer.
If you understand the business nature of the customer it will help to speak with them in their language which helps to build the rapo with the customer in the future it will be the credit you can bet up on to certain extent.

Will blog further in the upcomming blogs.. soon...