I've been asked by PMI (the Project Management Institute) to create an article for an upcoming series on basically this very concept. Sort of a "What Would You Do" topic where I discuss an issue I came up against during a project, how I handled it, what the outcome was, and then I call for responses. The idea is to generate a community discussion so we can all learn from each other's responses on how each of us handled a similar situation or how we might handle it if faced with something similar in the future.
So, I thought this might be a nice ongoing series that I present here as well. I may or may not present something from my past experience or from a colleagues past experience - it may be real or made up. And if any of you want a situation or incident discussed on here, just email me and I'll use it for an upcoming topic.
I'm not yet sure how often I'll do these - I'm thinking possible twice per week. Today's installment is about requirements...a touchy subject for all, I'm sure.
Scenario: You're starting a project, you have schedule and price in place and you sit down with the customer and their team to review the detailed requirements that they say they have and that the schedule is built around. What you find out, though, is that their detailed requirements are really very vague, high-level requirements that will require much more detail and thorough analysis before you have anything useable to build a solution from.
The impact, of course, is that you have the schedule and a price for the project that is based on the fact that you won't have to do this further detailed requirements planning and documentation with the client...they indicated they had detailed requirements as the deal was closed. But they don't. What do you do next? Do you put the project on hold till they have the requirements? Do you go back to the account manager and have them rework the deal? Do you create a change order to cover the extra planning time? Keep in mind - this is the first PM-customer interaction and starting off with a change order or demand for more money may not sit well with them... it must be handled carefully.
Looking forward to your respones...thanks.
So, I thought this might be a nice ongoing series that I present here as well. I may or may not present something from my past experience or from a colleagues past experience - it may be real or made up. And if any of you want a situation or incident discussed on here, just email me and I'll use it for an upcoming topic.
I'm not yet sure how often I'll do these - I'm thinking possible twice per week. Today's installment is about requirements...a touchy subject for all, I'm sure.
Scenario: You're starting a project, you have schedule and price in place and you sit down with the customer and their team to review the detailed requirements that they say they have and that the schedule is built around. What you find out, though, is that their detailed requirements are really very vague, high-level requirements that will require much more detail and thorough analysis before you have anything useable to build a solution from.
The impact, of course, is that you have the schedule and a price for the project that is based on the fact that you won't have to do this further detailed requirements planning and documentation with the client...they indicated they had detailed requirements as the deal was closed. But they don't. What do you do next? Do you put the project on hold till they have the requirements? Do you go back to the account manager and have them rework the deal? Do you create a change order to cover the extra planning time? Keep in mind - this is the first PM-customer interaction and starting off with a change order or demand for more money may not sit well with them... it must be handled carefully.
Looking forward to your respones...thanks.
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