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Successfully Interviewing Your Project Customer and Gathering Project Requirements - Part VII - Gain Customer Interaction By Using Questions

December 17, 2007 | Author: PM Hut | Filed under: Project Management Best Practices, Requirements Management

Successfully Interviewing Your Project Customer and Gathering Project Requirements - Part VII - Gain Customer Interaction By Using Questions (#7 in the series Successfully Interviewing Your Project Customer and Gathering Project Requirements)
By Keith Mathis - PM Expert Live

The types of questions and how they are used are very important in the interviewing process. Many times, the project manager and team will have a tendency to make declarative statements concerning the project rather than ask the correct combination of questions needed to pull this information out of the customer.

Asking questions allows the customer to be part of this interaction. This means that the customer has the capability of being able to verbally direct you in what the project should achieve. It is through this verbal interaction that the customer has the capability of being able to explain what is to be done and why. It is not uncommon after the interviews for both the project manager and project team to understand a whole different level of project requirements.

There are three benefits that take place during the interview process.

  1. Questions allow for emotional and psychological bondingDuring the questioning of the customer, there is an exchange of emotional and psychological bonding between the customer and the project team. This bonding is extremely important to the outcomes desired in putting this project together. As a customer bonds with the project team, they feel more comfortable and give more details and specifications on how he or she desires for the project to function.
  2. Questions build rapport and empathyThe second principle that is learned is that questions build rapport and empathy. The rapport between the project team and the customer is needed for guiding the project toward success. In addition, empathy is built between the project team and the customer who allows them to work in a mutual manner rather than in a competitive nature.
  3. Questions move the customer toward a more clear decisionInterviewing the customer also assists in clarifying decisions and direction for the project. There are times with many customers where they only have a skeleton of what needs to be accomplished with the project. This skeleton has a tendency to spread out or evolve over time, which could creep the scope of the project or cause needless changes. Asking the right kind of questions can surface these specifics earlier in the process and allow the project team more time to plan. In addition, it also allows the customer the opportunity to think through some of these hard questions prior to spending large dollars and having to make changes, which could cost more and impact time calculations.

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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This entry was posted on Monday, December 17th, 2007 and is filed under Project Management Best Practices, Requirements Management. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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