Comments on: How to align stakeholders around project scope without a requirements review and sign-off process

By: Akarsh MG

Akarsh MG — Mon, 04 Oct 2010 04:56:28 +0000

@Adriana – I know its a great result; i will update you more on this as it progresses.

By: Adriana Beal

Adriana Beal — Sun, 03 Oct 2010 13:36:52 +0000

It’s great to know, Akarsh! 80% is a great result — goes to show that you were very effective communicating the “local benefits” to your audience. Feel free to write any time you have other questions and comments.

By: Akarsh MG

Akarsh MG — Sun, 03 Oct 2010 06:23:02 +0000

@Adriana – Your idea on creating “local-benefits” works great; even though i was not able to get 100% attention of all the SME’s currently it has worked at least to grab the attention of 80% of them.

During this week i will be having couple of more discussions with some more SME’s i should be able to get there attention also on this; more over a visual presentation which show cases “current” & “future” benefits which covers both “local-benefits” and “high-level” benefits has also worked well.

I will contact you if need any more information.

Thanks a lot!!

By: Akarsh MG

Akarsh MG — Wed, 29 Sep 2010 06:13:29 +0000

@Adriana – I will be presenting the benefits to SME’s in a week/two weeks time; i will let you know how it goes; i agree little “social science” is required .

@Tola – I started my career as a developer too i understand what you mean; i have always focused on the “high-level benefits” but as Adriana was pointing out now i have started working on “local-benefits”. I am making sure the presentation covers every aspects also working on a presenation which show cases “current” & “future” benefits.

By: Tola Anjorin Jnr

Tola Anjorin Jnr — Tue, 28 Sep 2010 19:16:47 +0000

@Adriana: you are 100% right about the fact that the top managers are not doing a good job communicating the benefits and importance of the project down the hierarchy, and that “WIIFY” is what @Akarsh needs.

In my former job, i was on a team working on a internet banking project to be developed in-house. The project was going to replace the existing software in use, and the while the top managers saw the benefits of the cost savings, as there wouldn’t be any need to pay thousands of dollars for annual support fees, the mid-level SMEs felt the old system was fine and developing a new one was just another “stress”.

Not until we began to let them see the what was in it for them (nobody called it WIIFY at the time, ), did they start showing interest and commitment to the project. The important point here is that, in that case the mid-level SMEs started seeing what was in it for them at the Testing Phase (when they saw the new features the system offered vís-a-vís the existing one), and that led to alot of change requests which really affected the project scope.

So @Akarsh, i think it’s crucial you focus on WIIFY at the early stage of the project. I was more of a developer than a BA on that project, and so know i crazy it was having to write more codes and tweak existing designs.

Thanks @Adriana and @Laura. You guys are doing a great job. I hope to know as much you guys someday.