An Alternative Approach to Help Identify Your Client Needs

Have you ever thought about Immersing Yourself as a Journalist?

Whether discussing an potential client opportunity or working on an engagement, most consultants have felt the impact of incomplete requirements on a client relationship or the consultant's bottom line. This month's article is about a requirement gathering technique that I use, when appropriate, to gather requirements. It works for solo-consultants as well as for a team of people. _________________________________________________________________________

It is fabulous feeling when you start working with a new client, but that feeling can quickly fade if a consultant is unable to gather the data and information they need to be successful.  

Occasionally, traditional techniques such as interviews and observations do not completely identify requirements. Sometimes interviews are impossible to schedule because a key stakeholder has limited time. Periodically, some people being interviewed or observed are guarded only providing the information they think you should or want to know.

If the traditional data-gathering techniques are not providing the data and information necessary to create solid requirements, be creative. Consider another option that is often not used. The option is to employ a journalist approach known as immersion reporting in which the requirements are discovered by living the experience. 

The Scenario

After a year of development, the much-awaited day arrived. The new customer ordering system went live. However, within six weeks, Management halted use of the new system because the staff and customers were struggling and complaining. Frustration by the staff led to the system being dubbed “the OOPS system.” A customer service representative reported, “It takes twice as long to resolve a customer question or complaint. To make matters worse, I have no choice but to ask a customer to hold or say I’ll get back to them. I can’t quickly find the relevant customer data. Not only am I struggling to find the right customer data but I also need to update the customer record while dealing with an annoyed customer. This system is definitely an “OOPS.”

Management was dishearten to hear the staff and customer negative comments. Because the software team continued to insist, they followed all the right project processes, Management requested a review of the entire initiative. The major finding—the requirements were incomplete because the project team clearly did not understand the needs. During the requirements gathering, the project team had not engaged the right people due to people’s schedules.

Think like a Journalist

Some engagements require a consultant to take the traditional data-gathering techniques to the next level, which might include using a technique known as immersion reporting. Immersion reporting is telling a story by living the story; it is telling the story about the event and place through the eyes of the people. Immersion reporting is immersing yourself into the experience and building trust by living and breathing the air of the people who do the work.

Immersion reporting is more than the traditional Who? What? Where? When? Why? How?” reporting that many of us were taught in schools. It adds another element to understanding and takes into account the emotions and feelings of people. From an engagement perspective, it enables a team to see and feel the needs that may never be heard in an interview or observed from the sideline. The consultant not only hears about the pain points, they experience and understand the pain because they walk in the shoes of the people who are closest to the need—and when doing so they identify the engagement requirements.     

There are a number of celebrated journalists and writers that use immersion reporting. Richard Engel, a current NBC news reporter who has received numerous awards for journalism excellence, is known to go to the extremes to capture the story. Many people recognize his name because of his reporting on the wars in Iran and Afghanistan and now Ukraine. In an effort to clarify and obtain firsthand knowledge, he immerses himself into the experience and develops a deep understanding of the event, people, or places. He builds trust with the people and in turn, they share their feelings and facts about the experience. Richard wraps himself around the story (the context) and analyzes not only what he heard but also what he saw and felt enabling him to provide the right facts at the right time. 

For some engagements, development of a deep understanding in the right context is what is needed to do to fully identify the engagement requirements. Occasionally, the only way for a consultant to learn the facts so that good, if not great, requirements are identified is to immerse themselves into the work—they need to feel and experience the actual event and place through the eyes of the people. It means rolling up sleeves and performing the work. It is the being there, not only the listening, but understanding the needs by experiencing them. It is feeling what the stakeholders are feeling.

Immerse Technique

Using an immersion technique may or may not require more time, but regardless of the amount of time spent, the time invested using the technique can pay off. Guards drop because you are no longer a stranger. Instead, you become one of the family. Trust is built. People feel comfortable sharing the good as well as the bad. You learn the culture of the operation and obtain an understanding of how people work together and how they want to work in the future. You gain an understanding of what makes the operational team successful (or not) and learn what is critical (and not) to them. You can even find out the most interesting and unique aspects of the situation, which you may never have known about if you had not been immersed into the experience.

Although the reasons to immerse yourself into the experience are engagement dependent, a consultant might want to consider the technique if:

• There are intangible requirements that people find difficult to identify or articulate and  the intangible requirements could influence project success.  
• A solo-consultant or team is struggling, for any number of reasons, to identify the requirements and interviews with stakeholders and observing from the sidelines is not adequate.
• The consultant is not comfortable with the data or information provided also known as the “it does not feel or sound right” situation.  

There are times during a discovery or exploratory meeting that a consultant can identify there will be a challenge gathering detailed requirements. If that is the case, don’t hesitate to include in the proposed approach using an immersion reporting technique to gather requirements.

If the consultant decides to use an immersion reporting technique to identify requirements:

• Understand the work by doing it. Roll-up your sleeves and become a trusted member.
• Observe. Quietly observe, not from the sidelines. Evaluate what is going on and ask questions.
• Learn the language. Learn the vocabulary and jargon that is unique to the work tasks, but also learn the nonverbal language that becomes apparent as people work together. 
• Read. Read memos, policies, procedures, guidebooks, professional publications, marketing literature, postings on boards—anything that can provide insight into potential requirements and provide you the opportunity to ask questions.

Immersing yourself does not mean key stakeholders or subject matter experts are ignored. They are still important to the data-gathering process and conversations need to occur with them as the team is immersed in the experience. Additionally, it does not mean the other data-gathering techniques are irrelevant because immerse reporting augments the other techniques employed. Immersion reporting provides color and context to augment engagement requirements identified using traditional methods.

The Scenario Again

What happened with “the OOPS system?” Management went back to the drawing board and asked the team to clarify and expand the requirements documentation. Key team members were immersed within various departments. As they became part of the family, guards came down, and trust was built. Eventually a system that met the needs of everyone was implemented.

Conclusion

Consultants have been taught interviews, brainstorming sessions, questionnaires, surveys, prototypes, and observation are good data-gathering techniques. However, for any number of reasons, sometimes these data-gathering techniques are not good enough. Another option is to simply immersing yourself into the experience. By immersing yourself into the experience, it is possible to see and feel the event through the eyes of the people. Immersing yourself into the experience builds trust and enhances the sharing of information resulting in a better understanding of the requirements. _________________________________________________________________________

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