9th October 2001Confidential to Ian Mitchell1 Customer On Site Ian Mitchell, FNZCS

9th October 2001Confidential to Ian Mitchell2 What is a Customer? A customer is the party that wants to use the results of your work. Normally that is a whole company Someone represents the company to you That person will now be referred to as The Customer.

9th October 2001Confidential to Ian Mitchell3 Is the customer a manager? Usually the customer will be manager of the company We need a customer who knows what the company does in detail And who has the authority to find out They may do that by setting up a committee They may be more effective by just having the authority to talk to anyone anytime!

9th October 2001Confidential to Ian Mitchell4 Is the customer a consultant? Hope not! (unless it’s me!) We prefer someone with current working knowledge of what the customer actually does. We do not want a layer between us and the end-users. We do not want someone who is being paid to beat us up!

9th October 2001Confidential to Ian Mitchell5 Is the customer a project manager? Hope not! (unless they are educated in XP) Critical path management approaches are not applicable to XP. But Critical Chain methods may be. But sometimes we do have launch dates. Resist marketing big bang approaches Try to get a pilot launch.

9th October 2001Confidential to Ian Mitchell6 Customer On Site To ensure close communication the customer must be readily available to the programming professionals. Some of this must be “on-site” Say face-to-face every day Make that most days But certainly face-to-face!

9th October 2001Confidential to Ian Mitchell7 Getting It Across A common metaphor White board – Large – Everyone can write on it – Capture (I use Mimio) Print the pages or keep the notes At pre-release time clear out & re-state.

9th October 2001Confidential to Ian Mitchell8 Communicating Detail Most managers have forgotten the details of any operation (if they were ever at the coalface) Or their knowledge is out-of-date Most managers are paid to think big They tend not to be good at detail But we need a lot of detailed info!

9th October 2001Confidential to Ian Mitchell9 Communicating the Practical Issues Particularly when programming detailed workflows we need to know what can go wrong and how that is handled Managers don’t do that – they employ clerks Our Customer-on-Site must be able to find out about that level of detail!

9th October 2001Confidential to Ian Mitchell10 Our Favourite Customer They have an Attitude for success – not bullying Influence the project - not control it Ability to prioritise – and not say everything is important Ability to accept change and learn Learns to write stories (and not tell us what to do) Learns to write functional tests Prepared to tick & cross tests at all levels Demonstrate Courage.

9th October 2001Confidential to Ian Mitchell11 Internal Customers Package software has many customers Road Warriors find out about customer environments and what works for them Sales people learn about requests for enhancements – funded by customers, of course! Select preferred customers – representative? Form a “Nominal Users Group”.

9th October 2001Confidential to Ian Mitchell12 Vertical Market Software Need to prioritise enhancements Avoid multiple environments You soon become the industry expert Form a user group Get them to do the prioritisation of features Value = Funded Easy rapid distribution/implementation.

9th October 2001Confidential to Ian Mitchell13 Challenges No suitable person Customers in internal disputes Customer has internal conflicts of priorities Accountant: it must be done exactly like this Sales: it must be launched before Christmas Unwillingness to triage Can you step in and provide a 1-1 manager?

9th October 2001Confidential to Ian Mitchell14 Conclusions Focus on communication and feedback Be clear about where the business value is Ensure the professionals have a good feel for how the software will be used Get an agreed style for GUIs and interfaces If in doubt go see the end-users Ensure releases are promptly reviewed.

9th October 2001Confidential to Ian Mitchell15 Thank You