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Are Programmers Project Stakeholders?

March 3, 2009 | Author: PM Hut | Filed under: Project Management Musings

Are Programmers Project Stakeholders?
By Craig Brown

Are programmers/developers stakeholders to the project? And of so, do they have a voice in the requirements?

Yes, in my opinion, developers are stakeholders. Their personal reputations and future job opportunities are related to the quality of the project. So yes, they should have a voice in requirements definition. Even if they weren’t stakeholders their opinion matters.

Some requirements managers take a view that the full requirements set should be delivered to the solutions team (ie the developers, or a solution design team) and it’s up to them to work out what can and can’t be done within the constraints of the project.

That leads to two problems:

1. Developers can do anything given the time (they truly are magicians) - so the answer to “can we do it?” is always yes and the costs aren’t properly addressed, and
2. Requirements prioritisation is not mapped to do-ability. This means that hard, high risk requirements are addressed first because the client wants them, even though they may derail the whole development process.

But developers are stakeholders, so analysts must discuss the business requirements with them up front and factor in their views into the product vision.

Craig Brown has worked as a project manager and business analyst mainly in the Australian ITC and the banking industries. He has also worked in the law, education and welfare industries, including starting a law firm. Craig now has a Master’s degree in project management from RMIT university, and is currently working with a Melbourne based IT consulting firm called OptimiseIT. Craig’s personal blog can be found at http://www.betterprojects.net/.

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