Customers
Q: Can you make a customer happy?
A: No. It is up to the customer to decide. Nothing you do can make a customer happy.
Q: What are the three biggest risks to client satisfaction?
A: Budget
B: Timeline
C: Specifications
Q: How many of three risks can the client tolerate losing?
A: One.
Projects
Q: why can an expert do job faster than non-expert?
A: because the expert knows what jobs he does NOT have to do.
Q: Are there going to be difficulties in every project?
A: Yes.
Q: How should project difficulties be handled?
A: They need to be managed immediately.
Q: What are the steps to managing difficulties?
A: Describe the difficulty as it pertains to changing expectations about the delivery of:
1. Budget
2. Timeline
3. Specfications
B: Describe what will happen if the difficulty is ignored.
C: Describe at least two solutions to the difficulty
1. Pros and Cons of solution
2. Cost of Solution
Q: Why do we deliver a budget to the client?
A: So the client can decide if the cost vs risk vs reward ratio meets their requirements.
Q: Why do we deliver a timeline to the client?
A: So the client can plan for the arrival of their project.
Q: Why do we deliver a specification to the client?
A: So the client commits to single irrevocable course of action.
Q: How do you make a cost to build?
A: You record all the steps in an existing process, you record all the requirements of the process, you create a picture of what those screens should look like, and you put a price next to each item and add up all the prices.
Q: How do you make a budget?
A: You record how much it costs to perform the current process, then you set a productivity improvement factor that the business would pay to have, and the business puts a price on that improvement.
Q: What are three good reasons to make custom software?
A: It's cheaper than buying, what you want / need doesn't exist, and / or you want to own / control the code.
Q: How to make custom software?
A: Follow these steps:
1. establish business case for project - why are we doing this
2. establish top down budget - how much can we spend and still save money
3. inventory current process - what are we doing now
4. inventory business requirements - what does the process require
5. complete use cases - what do the users need to be able to do
6. create wireframes - what do the forms need to look like
7. reconcile wireframes with above
8. cost out the wireframes - see http://neocodesoftware.blogspot.com/2009/04/how-to-reasonably-quote-100-screen.html
sections to come:
Where to make custom software
How to maintain custom software
How to maintain old (5+ years) custom software
How to maintain very old (10+) custom software
How to maintain ancient (15+) custom software
How to pay for custom software
Q: Can you make a customer happy?
A: No. It is up to the customer to decide. Nothing you do can make a customer happy.
Q: What are the three biggest risks to client satisfaction?
A: Budget
B: Timeline
C: Specifications
Q: How many of three risks can the client tolerate losing?
A: One.
Projects
Q: why can an expert do job faster than non-expert?
A: because the expert knows what jobs he does NOT have to do.
Q: Are there going to be difficulties in every project?
A: Yes.
Q: How should project difficulties be handled?
A: They need to be managed immediately.
Q: What are the steps to managing difficulties?
A: Describe the difficulty as it pertains to changing expectations about the delivery of:
1. Budget
2. Timeline
3. Specfications
B: Describe what will happen if the difficulty is ignored.
C: Describe at least two solutions to the difficulty
1. Pros and Cons of solution
2. Cost of Solution
Q: Why do we deliver a budget to the client?
A: So the client can decide if the cost vs risk vs reward ratio meets their requirements.
Q: Why do we deliver a timeline to the client?
A: So the client can plan for the arrival of their project.
Q: Why do we deliver a specification to the client?
A: So the client commits to single irrevocable course of action.
Q: How do you make a cost to build?
A: You record all the steps in an existing process, you record all the requirements of the process, you create a picture of what those screens should look like, and you put a price next to each item and add up all the prices.
Q: How do you make a budget?
A: You record how much it costs to perform the current process, then you set a productivity improvement factor that the business would pay to have, and the business puts a price on that improvement.
Q: What are three good reasons to make custom software?
A: It's cheaper than buying, what you want / need doesn't exist, and / or you want to own / control the code.
Q: How to make custom software?
A: Follow these steps:
1. establish business case for project - why are we doing this
2. establish top down budget - how much can we spend and still save money
3. inventory current process - what are we doing now
4. inventory business requirements - what does the process require
5. complete use cases - what do the users need to be able to do
6. create wireframes - what do the forms need to look like
7. reconcile wireframes with above
8. cost out the wireframes - see http://neocodesoftware.blogspot.com/2009/04/how-to-reasonably-quote-100-screen.html
sections to come:
Where to make custom software
How to maintain custom software
How to maintain old (5+ years) custom software
How to maintain very old (10+) custom software
How to maintain ancient (15+) custom software
How to pay for custom software
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