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Successfully Interviewing Your Project Customer and Gathering Project Requirements - Part III - Benefits of Conducting a Requirements Interview

October 26, 2007 | Author: PM Hut | Filed under: Project Management Best Practices

Successfully Interviewing Your Project Customer and Gathering Project Requirements - Part III - Benefits of Conducting a Requirements Interview (#3 in the series Successfully Interviewing Your Project Customer and Gathering Project Requirements)
By Keith Mathis - PM Expert Live

When a project team conducts a requirements interview, there are some very positive benefits which can be established to improve the odds of running a successful project. The positive side of conducting this interview to the entire team is that it impacts the morale of the team, project manager, and customer.

You can identify the real needs, requirements, and goals of the project.
Interviews allow the project team to create a plan based on the real needs and goals as presented by the customer. Identifying the actual goals of the customer allows you the opportunity to base your plan on foundational standards which are in alignment and will ultimately be measured by the customer. In many projects, it is difficult to understand exactly how the customer is measuring success. Only after you have identified the real needs, requirements and goals of the project based on the customer’s interview will you know the exact measuring stick to be used.

What will surprise you sometimes in trying to understand the needs, requirements and goals of the project is that many times your customer has a different view of those goals and sometimes has trouble articulating them. These goals must be fleshed out and understood completely by the project manager and the team. To do this effectively, you must ask questions that will provide you the needed details.

You can determine the steps of action to fulfill the requirements.
Determining the steps of action means the project team will design a plan based on the information which has been accumulated from the customer. After collecting this information, you will analyze it and create actual deliverables.

The key word here is the emphasis on analysis based upon the interview. Many times, the customer does not have the proper language or knowledge base to inform us what he or she really wants. He or she can tell us outcomes; however, they are limited in being able to inform us of the internal workings to reach those outcomes. For example, a customer might tell the information technology (IT) department that a certain website should act in a particular manner, but the customer does not have the knowledge and expertise to explain how to do this. This means the IT professional conducting the interview is to take the simple language provided by the customer and interpret it into technical language and drivers to fulfill the customer’s desires. Many project teams forget this portion of analysis and expect the customer to detail all the outcomes of the project and what is desired, completely preventing the team from any need of analysis. This is not realistic today! The reason a project team is together is because they have a strong expertise in a particular area, which is needed to analyze the situation.

You can know ahead of time the real measurements of success.
How the customer determines success in a project is important. Too many project teams play the guessing game on measuring the success of a project. Sometimes, in a seminar, people have laughingly told the story of how a project was completed, which met all the criteria as specified; however, it did not work. These kinds of interpretations of the success of a project become very frustrating to both the customer and the project team. On other occasions, project teams have indicated they really did not want to know the real measuring stick of the success of a project. They basically felt they knew more than the customer concerning how to measure success, and they would deliver what they thought was best. This is of great concern in the project management field because more people want to deliver to the customer what they have determined to be successful, rather than allowing the customer to judge success. Unless the customer and the project team are working to come up with a joint measurement of success, there will always be the impression that the project missed something and did not function as desired.

You can gain real help from your team in reaching the goals faster.
When you need to speed up the project or move the project decision along faster, you can gain a great deal of internal expertise and know-how from your project team. Today, the greatest knowledge can be delivered from the front-line worker who does a job over and over again. Although, this can only take place if all information, goals, and data have been given and explained, and the communication is open. This is difficult in some projects due to
classifications or secrecy policies that affect what some team members can know about a circumstance.

You can prioritize the important requirements for better tracking.
Prioritizing the most important requirements of a project is very important, especially as a measurement of success. When working on a project it is vital to understand how each requirement is prioritized in the mind of the customer. This understanding allows each team member to realize that, in case of a crisis, some requirements will have less impact on the customer and which might have the capability of being changed.

When focusing on tracking throughout the project, it is very important to make sure that the measurement is clear, concise, and represents real progress on the project. An example of what not to do is to only track a measurement because you have the capability of tracking it regardless of whether it gives you any real benefit in showing performance or status on the project.

You can increase your chance of success by knowing all the goals and requirements up front.
The last benefit, which really influences the need to do a thorough interview with the client, is that you will know all your goals and requirements early. This allows you the capability of being able to make adjustments on the front end of the project, and you will be able to move it toward completion in a faster, more cohesive manner.

Dr. Keith Mathis, founder and CEO of The Mathis Group, specializes in Project Management, Management Leadership, and Marketing training for private businesses and government agencies of all kinds. He offers 33 Project Management courses, is a Project Management Professional, is certified by the Project Management Institute and will customize every training session to your individual company’s needs. The Mathis Group also sponsors www.pmexpertlive.com, which is a powerful project management resource with free reports, podcasts, videos, and a monthly newsletter. He also offers customized management training and coaching on any subject with prolific communication and professionalism.

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