Managing Common Sense
I'm often told to take my Project Management hat off, but truth be told by applying a bit of PM thought to your customer engagement, it will positively impact your working hours and the overall success of your customer engagements.
Yes, the following ten tips are almost entirely filed under Common Sense and no doubt many of these lists already exist, but in my experience when under pressure to deliver, it's useful to refer back to your standards to keep yourself and your engagements in check.
Definition: If the customer is unable to define exactly what they want, then how do you expect to deliver the items on this list? Be sure that your solution definition is what the customer has understood as well.
Change: If the customer says one thing but has a different opinion five minutes later. Get everything in writing once the direction is agreed upon; you can then reject or charge for spurious changes afterwards.
Availability: This is unlikely to be your only customer, partition your availability appropriately. Establish timelines and make deadlines you can actually meet.
Time: Protect your time zone. Do not send or respond to emails at 5 am or schedule meetings after business hours for you. Don’t be afraid to say no to a customer or move them onto a local team in their time zone.
Delivery: Be sure to understand and manage your customer’s expectation of the delivery schedule. If they expect the impossible, educate them. This is as much to protect their deadlines as it is for you and your other customers.
Feature: Don't allow a customer to hold an entire project up for a single feature. Recommend options that can deliver the overall requirement. If they offer no compromise then reconsider the engagement.
Scope Creep: It is not just about charging more money to add new requests. A clear vision of the final solution must be agreed upon so that scope creep can be identified and measured.
Design: By Committee. The project and the customer should present a single point of contact with a single agreed scope and view of the project timelines and deliverables.
Freedom: It’s always nice to have minimal pressure from a customer on a project journey, but always ensure you have signed off objectives and agreements on project milestones, otherwise you and your client may not end up at the same destination.
Estimation: Don’t. If you don’t know how long, how much or if something is possible, then within reason be up front and place it as a risk in the project until you do know. Do not confuse this with not being confident or uncertain. They may not like that their new requirement can't be simply squeezed in, but placing an estimate into an established timeline is all but guaranteed to railroad your deadline.