What are the best methods for incorporating stakeholder feedback in OR software development?

In my experience, regular connect with your stakeholders, system demos and then implementing their and market feedback. Have a proper alignment on the vision of the product is much needed before and during the product development phase.

We can ensure that stakeholder feedback is effectively incorporated into OR software development by following the below: Early and Frequent Engagement: Involve stakeholders from the beginning. This helps understand their needs, expectations, and preferences for the OR software. Agile Development Methods: Consider using Agile methodologies. Agile breaks down development into smaller chunks with frequent deliveries of working software. Communication and Transparency: Maintain open communication with stakeholders. Keep them informed of progress and potential roadblocks. Prioritization and Management: Use a prioritization matrix to weigh different feedback points. This helps focus on critical aspects and address potential conflicts.

Regularly gather stakeholder input through meetings, surveys, and feedback channels. Prioritize feedback based on impact and feasibility. Integrate it into the development process using agile methodologies. Foster open communication and collaboration to ensure continuous alignment with stakeholder needs in operational research software development.

I always start with two questions: 1. Who will use my development outcome? 2. Who has authority for start of work. Question 1 is important for understanding what should be done. Also it helps to be convincing when discussing budget/permission for the start of work

? Identifier les parties prenantes : Reconna?tre les acteurs impliqués, comme le personnel médical, les patients, les clients, les sponsors, les gestionnaires et les développeurs. ? Comprendre les r?les et besoins : Analyser les intérêts et attentes de chaque partie prenante afin de délimiter la portée et les objectifs du projet. ? Utiliser des outils comme la carte des parties prenantes : Visualiser les relations et l'impact des parties prenantes à l'aide d'outils graphiques, pour faciliter la communication et la collaboration.

- Conduct 1-1 sessions with the customer's representative to exhibit the software - Showcase the strengths and capabilities of the software during these sessions - Engage in dialogue and ask pertinent questions to extract detailed requirements - Recognize that customers often have a clear idea of their needs but may struggle to articulate them in technical terms

If there is a big feature to be developed, then delivery is done in chunks. For example every two weeks new piece of functionality is delivered, and stakeholders should arrange feedback within 3 days, or if no feedback, myself or my team will treat it as a sign of approval.

Stakeholders should be involved right from the beginning of development of the OR model. The assumptions and limitations of the model should be clearly communicated with them, so that any workarounds or model tuning can be done by taking their feedback. One example that we usually encounter is the case of constraint violation which causes infeasibilty in OR models. Infeasibility might be a result of lack of sufficient resources or some underlying business limitation. This can be communicated with the stakeholder and accordingly they can take a call and their feedback would help in reformulations.

Organize feedback workshops or focus groups where stakeholders can provide input collectively. Facilitate discussions around specific features, user interfaces, or workflow processes to gather diverse perspectives and identify common themes.

To effectively gather stakeholder feedback in software development, diverse methods and sources are crucial throughout the project lifecycle. These include surveys, interviews, focus groups, workshops, observations, user testing, and feedback forms. Sources encompass documents, reports, databases, websites, and existing software systems. Feedback collection aids in understanding stakeholders' requirements, preferences, and satisfaction levels from planning to deployment phases.

Analyze and synthesize stakeholder feedback to identify common patterns, prioritize enhancements, and make informed decisions about the direction of the software. Consider both quantitative and qualitative feedback to gain a comprehensive understanding of stakeholders' perspectives.

Critically analyze the feedback. Brainstorm with peers before implementing. Use Devil's advocate approach to come up with an alternative solution. Discuss with stakeholders and agreed with a solution and plan for implementation.

Feedback is critical to ensure the right analytics approach is proceeding to answer the research question and follow-on questions. A solution may need multiple approaches and interdependent on whether the " best" solution, statistical, correlation, or optimization from the quantitative side captures the ask.

To analyze feedback effectively, the third step involves extracting relevant and actionable information. This process may entail sorting, categorizing, prioritizing, and synthesizing feedback data. Tools for feedback analysis include affinity diagrams, requirements traceability matrices, gap analysis, SWOT analysis, and the Kano model. Analyzing feedback helps identify common themes, issues, gaps, opportunities, and risks in the software development process.

Also realise that potential users don’t know what they don’t know so you need to think beyond the comments provided (including this one)

Hay que entender que este punto si se hace con el due?o del producto o cliente interno o externo se podría volver infinito. Es importan especificar plazos para la retroalimentación y expectativas de ellas al momento de presentar la propuesta o solución de software.

Maintain open and transparent communication channels with stakeholders, keeping them informed about the status of the project, upcoming changes, and how their feedback is being addressed. Demonstrating responsiveness to feedback builds trust and engagement among stakeholders.

This is a generic issue faced by every software development and not unique to the OR software development so it doesn’t belong in this section.

fast iterations, even on incomplete scope, so that at least you validate what you ve understood so far... before that: spend as much time as possible with the users, take note what they do. be them. spend some hours during their shifts. takes notes. then scope what would be three key features that would radically improve those users. if it has business value, that s your first mvp. validate and test. three weeks iterations. fail early means you understand earlier.

Si estás acá y tienes muchas dudas con respecto a lo que lees te puedo ayudar con tu proyecto o a reclutar a la persona con el perfil que necesitas ??.