Random thoughts on being service-oriented

Currently, I work in a support group in the IT department of my company. Our group assists other IT teams by scheduling, assessing impact and coordinating deployments to our production systems. In essence, these are the services we provide. For the purposes of this posting, this is my frame of reference when I say service-oriented.
Random thoughts on improving your customers' experience:

1. Think about things from the perspective of your customers. Perspective is everything after all.
   
2. Take your own medicine - go through the process yourself. Have you ever come across a user interface where you wondered, "What were they (the developers) thinking?!"
   
3. Don't be a cold heartless bureaucrat. It's important to your customer; make sure they know it's important to you.
   
4. Do things which provide benefit and value, not because you're following a checklist.
   
5. The process you steward can be a part of a much larger one. Never forget it. When someone asks for help but it's in another area, make sure you explain to them how the larger process works and your piece in it.
   
6. When you need to pass a client onto another service team, do it personally if possible. Make sure the transition goes smoothly.
7. Acknowledge the requests you've received and set expectations for completion.
8. Provide updates when you're running late and won't be able to meet the expectation.
9. Follow-up afterwards and ask for feedback.
10. People shouldn't use your services because they have to. Don't tell them that. People should use your services because they want to! Be ready to market the benefits in a tangible way.

Someone else's shoes

Continuing from my last post, spending a day in another person's shoes will give you an appreciation and understanding of their point of view.
Try this simple exercise - Drop any preconceptions or notions you may have and pretend you are in the position of one of your clients or end-users. Do a little role-playing to increase your empathy.

• What would you want or need to be successful?
• Why would you want it? What would you do with it? What's the value?
  
• When would you need it?

By no means do I suggest you use this technique to gather requirements for a client, however, it will help you look at things differently and with a more open mind.

Change your perspective

Perspective influences how you view the world. It allows you to see things in a different light than another person, but it can also keep you from understanding their point of view. When you are gathering requirements from a client, having empathy enhances your ability to understand their needs.

Benefits of being able to view things differently:

1. Allows you to be open-minded, receptive and patient.


2. You learn to think like your client. In some of my engagements, I found my clients could not articulate exactly what they wanted. I needed to perform a lot of facilitation to help gather and define requirements. Being able to think like them allowed me to probe more effectively and determine the underlying objectives.


3. Because you understand your client's point of view, you can anticipate their next question. This is an excellent value-add to your ability to provide service.

Changing perspective isn't a foreign concept. If you have ever created user stories, you have in essence used an approach that incorporates the different perspectives of the people involved. User stories are easy for the different parties to understand -- clear communication is always the goal.

Make understanding your client's perspective a part of every engagement.

Requirement Gathering Techniques - Part IV - The end

Let's close the loop on this series of posts by recapping what I have covered.

1. Understand the requirement gathering situation you are facing. What is the nature of the project? How urgent is it? Are there knowledgeable resources that can be leveraged?
2. Choose the most appropriate requirement gathering methods for the task at hand based on your knowledge of the situation.
3. Using the number of times you believe you will need to use a specific requirement gathering method, estimate how long it will take you.
4. Set expectations with your clients using your estimates and aspire to meet them. You may need to be flexible and negotiate a mutually acceptable expectation.

I know all of this is common sense but it will go a long way towards managing your clients' expectations about your deliverables and building trust. Of course, you will still need to execute according to your plan and show how you are progressing.

Requirement Gathering Techniques - Part III - Set expectations

One of the most important things that you can do with your clients is develop trust and integrity. The simplest way to achieve this is to say what you are going to do; and then go out and do it.

Build visibility into your process and acknowledge when things are not going according to plan. Visibility implies that people know what you are doing and your current status. Traceability supports this function by allowing people to quickly navigate through your work.

State the methods you will employ on the engagement. Negotiate for adequate time and resource availability commitments. Then build your work plan.

State what software tools (i.e., Rational Rose, MS Visio, MS Excel, MS Word, Telelogic DOORS, Borland CalibreRM, Requisite Pro etc...) you will be using for the deliverables.

State how your deliverables will be distributed to stakeholders and users.

Develop agreement on a review process.

Negotiate a change management process.

Show your progress against your plan on a regular frequency.

Execute.

If you can set expectations and deliver upon them; then you will be well on your way towards developing trust and integrity with your clients.