Customer Feedback Wanted

  Estimating  

Various studies--and common sense--indicate that involving customers increases the likelihood that your product will meet customer requirements. Although this statement sounds exceedingly obvious, the fact of the matter is many software projects lack customer input. Consider the following example:

Week 0: Zack, a project manager, is in charge of the next release of his organization's flagship product. For the past three months, Product Management has been meeting with existing and potential customers to determine which incremental features should be added to the existing release. After gathering those requirements, the one and only product manager wrote an SRS that has now been handed over to Zack.

Week 1: After reviewing the SRS, Product Development's first cut of the project estimates it will take between 30 to 34 person-months to meet all of the requirements. Zack's budget only accounts for 25 person-months.

Week 2: Zack's top priority is to scrub the requirements. Unfortunately, the product manager, who just ramped up a hard three months, took a well-deserved vacation. He'll be back in one week. To get his team going, Zack decides to prioritize the requirements himself and cut a few features that he doesn't feel are necessary.

Week 3: Another week has gone by and the product manager is back from his vacation, well rested. After spending most of the day going through …

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