Monday, February 28, 2005

If you know you need 53 deliverables...

When I read this story about a Request For Proposals with 53 deliverables specified I wasn't sure what to think about it.

Is the client very smart and do they know exactly what they want? If they really were smart they would have to be very knowledgeable about the process and methods (since they can specify the full list of deliverables necessary) so the question is why can't they create the deliverables themselves?

Is the client moderately smart and have they hired a consultancy to listen to them, help them analyze the problem, and educate them about possible solutions? If so, who came up with the list? Was it the client, or the consultancy? If it was the client, the consultancy must have done a good job educating the client, but apparently not enough to have them create the deliverables themselves. If the consultancy came up with the list, is it a standard list, or one that was tailored to the client?

Or is the client dumb and did they pick the first list of deliverables they found on the Net? (On this note: Congratulations to Boxes and Arrows on being the first hit on Google!)

In my opinion a project team can come up with a list of deliverables only after an assessment study exploring the key areas of risk (probably more deliverables) and known territory (potentially less deliverables), where the risk factor is a combination of unfamiliarity with the client, the solution domain, the technology and of course the users.

0 Comments:

Post a Comment (moderated)

<< Home