Scoping meeting

After several years of “pie in the sky” conversations and two months of pre-development work I have finally been able to hold the first Scope Meeting for the development of a client’s customer self-serve website. It’s been a long time coming, but now we can start building the crowning glory to their business’ IT systems.

The first session is very important because it allows me to find out how big they want the final product. From there the process of winding back the scope for the first version can begin. Sure, the client can have everything they want, but the pathway to getting it needs to be clearly defined and well maintained right from the start.

While the answer to “Can we do that?” is almost always “Yes!”, the most important part of the reply is “Which version would you like that to be available in?”. The trick to getting it done (and paid for) is to manage the clients expectations. If they want something NOW that’s fine, what is the client willing to delay so it can happen?. If they are willing to make that trade, great, let’s do that. If not, well, sorry, that’s not possible under the current conditions.

I don’t have to hide anything. I’m educating the client so that eventually they start asking these questions before I do. Suddenly the hard part of dealing with the client evaporates.