Hi everyone, I’m on Habra recently and it’s been an outlet for me. Thanks to those who find the strength to give advice and dialogue – it helps a lot. I can’t use all of them in practice at once, but at least it relieves me of moral tension. And to be honest, I did not expect that my previous article would be of interest to anyone. And there will even be a discussion in the comments. Pleasantly. Thank you.

Recently, re-reading the comments on the previous article, I thought that maybe it would be possible to create a discussion on the current topic. See how others interact with customers. Although, in my opinion, the nature of interaction with customers is approximately the same for everyone. Here I will try to describe my observations and thoughts about an important problem when the client himself does not quite understand what he really wants.

Why is it that every time on every project we meet customers who do not know their processes?

What are we talking about?

The Client comes and says, “I want to automate process X (hypothetically any client – from some field, and any process for simplicity – streaming)”. Let’s take some streaming essence as an example. Substitute any desired one instead of unknown, such as a loan application, bank card issuance, a request to change a sale, lead, loyalty, or anything that “flies in the flow”.

We get to know the client. We ask him about the requirements, evaluate, if we pass the budget, then we conduct a pre-project survey. We sell We are processing. We conduct a project survey. In general, we launch a project, adaptation of an already operated or new system, maybe CRM. Any project aimed at working with the processes of the client’s company.

He is a client, that is, he confidently says that he wants to “put this on stream”. So that it was clear, and the employees went through the states or stages of the entity. To perform steps that are mandatory in the process, etc. I will not go into depth, since this is all a “hypothetical essence”.
He can also add that some ready-made product is used and everything is already configured in it.

An analyst flies into this project. All of them understand how to extract information from the client (no sarcasm, really experienced). It starts to procrastinate.

And at the very first step, a business representative cannot formulate an elementary, in this case, stage or status thing. The person responsible for the processes in the company, whether he “knows” these processes, cannot say simply: Step 1 – status “New”, Step 2 – status “Working”, etc.
It cannot tell what is happening to the entity at each step. He cannot say what data he needs to make decisions. It cannot tell which people are involved at each step, why they are there.

The person responsible for the process in the company, who can “spin millions” at a moment’s notice, does not know how this process is arranged in the company. And the person himself is not stupid, knows how to formulate thoughts, speaks well, has relevant education and experience. But he can tell how the essence “lives” in the process “from A to Z”. It seems that the process is “intuitive”, “on the alert” of the performers or something like that.

Why?

Ask me a question about how my team works, or the team “nearby”, I will answer. Give me a kanban – I outline the statuses, scatter who does what tasks and why at each status, where the result will be, what it should be. And not only the IT part (Product, project, support or the like), but also sales, documents and anything within the framework of your company. I struggle with this every day, give me time – I will draw on paper, no one asks for beauty – “draw as you can”.

And the client does not.

It is worse if someone advised the client to hire an “info-ts…na”. With the methods of analysis and formalization of the decision of the “Super-Coordinator”, who “flys in” from outside, “knowing how to do it” and not “knowing how not to do it”. This is where the trouble is, an imposed process, sabotage of the process, resulting in a whole cohort of “poor people” who have to live with it, and stew in it.

Years pass, various solutions are implemented, there are already plenty of customers who change one solution to another, and not for the first time – people learn (gain experience), but nothing changes. Where is this experience?

Should I work with such clients?

In short, I think it’s worth it. Because it’s money. And our work is like that. But we are not bored and “every time is like the first time”.

“This has never happened, and here it is again” (c)

I can help, think, assume and suggest from the experience of working with similar processes, products, implementations. And the analyst (we will not name them all and divide them by grades and specifics, but thank you that they exist 😊) can break in with the help of known tools. It will even be nice to glue cards, if the team is visuals, or draw diagrams, if process workers, or paint excels, if we have whiteboards, etc.
And the developer will be interested. And on his part, he will also make a lot of effort. And he will turn his head and raise his hand when he sees that we are going somewhere wrong. As a result, we will formulate everything, adjust it and put the project on track.

We will prepare and implement the client’s team not “with two legs”, but gradually. By reducing the losses of key members of the Customer’s team, and maybe even all of them. By chance overcoming the fact that “it turns out that Peter from the third department has always done this, and now he needs to do it in another software, and he is very indignant.”

But it’s always difficult. And it often involves training the customer, polishing, and so on. And sometimes frankly (when the Customer also understands this somewhere in the process) “hand over to hand over”. So that there was a platform, and the performing team was paid and able to continue working. And these are investments from both sides.

I am not a writer, and this article is more like my knitting. Just a way to reflect on working moments. Or maybe create a discussion. It is always interesting to learn how such moments work for colleagues. Maybe someone has already solved these “problems of entering” the project.

I will be glad for feedback!