use cases



 Bullet Point Quality Control
 Bullet Point Clear Objectives
 Bullet Point Global Product Management
 Bullet Point Under Performing Product
 Bullet Point Consumer Expectations


clear objectives

scenario

On a number of occasions we have worked in companies where the enhancement request for a product didn't match the final delivery. Sometimes it only addressed elements of the requirement; at times it was a sledge hammer to kill an ant; and other times it bore no resemblance to the initial request. In most of these situations the product manager was in the firing line but this was, more often than not, misplaced blame (except that they should have investigated the chain of events more thoroughly).

As one can can imagine the customers were puzzled and concerned by the poor attention to detail.

tasks

We first identified a number of examples where the delivery had not match the customer's requirement. We then checked

  • the change order or enhancement requests
  • the product or functional specifications
  • the architecture or technical specification
  • any customer comments that were given post-delivery.

actions

Requirement request process

We set-up a new process to capture requirements. This identified the request owner, a customer representative, greater details on the request, why it had arisen and when it was needed by. In addition there were opportunities for other stakeholders to add comments to the request (e.g. the scope of delivery, if other customers had requested it, whether it was already available or due in a future release, etc.). Key to this process was making sure that the request owner signed-off the product specification and were shown working examples of the functionality prior to it being passed to QA. Where appropriate the customer was also involved in the sign off.

Change Orders

We discovered that while there was a formal change request process this did not cover enhancement requests, only minor bug fixes. This was because the major enhancements often came through sales, professional services or senior management and not customer support. We also found that this would occasionally result in the requests being lost in the system. Where we could trace an enhancement request, the detail was usually less than two sentences long and no owner could be found. So immediately the job of the product development manager became that of a mind reader.

Specification adherence

A number of other issue were uncovered primarily during the architecture and development  processes where:

  • architecture would deviate considerably from the functional specification. On a number of occasions this was to use the immediate request as an opportunity to fix other known issues
  • the developers were working solely from the architecture or technical specification but by this time the specs had drifted from the original requirement
  • QA in turn would also use the technical specification as a basis to plan their test schedule

It was important to work closely with the development team to get them to approach the design stage a little more conscientiously. First we agreed that elements of the product specification should be copied to the technical specification, so that they could  clearly be seen to have been addressed. Further down the line this assisted developers in understanding the original request. Many of the developers commented that these changes were welcomed, as they now felt they had a better understanding of how customers were using the applications and they felt less like machines on a production line.

The QA team were instructed to devise test plans primarily from the product specification. These changes had the backing of both the head of development and senior management.

result

The regular bemused look on the faces of our customers, as they received functionality that was unrelated to their request, subsided completely. This helped eradicate the feeling that delivery was both ad-hoc and sloppy and there was better visibility to the delivery process. From the companies perspective this helped our customers understand that new functionality was not an overnight process and subsequently delivery deadlines became more realistic.

A by-product was that request owner felt more empowered. They could see a through line from idea to delivery and how they could best influence the output.

© Visjung 2009