Staying on top of the project via status reporting and the project schedule is critical to keeping the project on track and keeping customer satisfaction high. However, there are always other factors that come into play – some you can control and some you never can. Some that you do have a lot of control over as a factor in stakeholder satisfaction include the softer skills of communication, customer service, and problem resolution. And really, as the project winds down you can hope you know how your customer feels about the project – or you can do the wise thing and go ahead and ask the tough questions. It’s best if you can gauge this throughout the engagement – but that isn’t always possible. However, it is definitely a very good idea – almost necessary, in my opinion – to regroup afterwards and discuss this topic with the customer and various stakeholders post engagement.