The Client

Developing a new product is expensive. Someone has to pay for it? Let's assume that you work for an organization that is about to launch into the development of a new product. Let's further assume that the development effort will involve, in total, 50 people from different parts of the organization. Who pays for their time? Whose budget is about to carry the cost of some, if not all, of the people and effort shortly to be expended?

The client pays for the development of the product.

Whoever it is, that person is your client. On the simple basis that money talks, the client, by paying for the development, has the last say in what that product does, how it does it, and how elaborate or how sparse it must be.

The clientthis stakeholder class is sometimes known as the sponsor or executive sponsoris most likely present at the blastoff meeting. (You should be a little worried if the client is not there.) Consider some possible roles to represent the class of client:

• User Management. If you are building a product for in-house consumption, the cost of construction is most likely borne by the manager of the users who will be the ultimate operators of the product. Their department, or their work, is the beneficiary of the product, so it is reasonable that their manager pays for it.

• Marketing Department. If you build products for sale to people outside your organization, the marketing department may assume the role of client. In other words, it is the marketers you have to satisfy.

• Product Development. If you build software for sale, the budget for its development might be with your product manager or strategic program manager.

Consider your own organization. What is its structure? Which role (or roles) in your organization represents the class of client? Who pays for product development? Who reaps the benefit of the business advantage that the product brings? Who do you have to satisfy with your product? That is your client. If the investment resources come from several sources, then you need to decide who takes responsibility as the client and coordinates the sources of investment.

Let's assume the client for the IceBreaker project is Mack Andrews, the chief executive of Saltworks Systems. Mr. Andrews has made the commitment to invest in building the product. You write this agreement into your requirements specification:

The client for the product is Mack Andrews, the chief executive of Saltworks Systems. Eventually the client would like to sell the product to customers in other countries. The client has agreed that he is responsible for approving changes in the scope of the product.

For more details on usability, adaptability, productization, and other types of requirements refer to the template in appendix B.

There are several things to note here. First, you name the client. It is now clear to everyone on the project that Mack Andrews takes responsibility for investing in the product. Second, other information is provided about the client that is used as the project progresses and may have a bearing on some of the requirementsparticularly, the usability, adaptability, and productization requirements.

The client is recorded in section 2 of the specification. See the Volere Requirements Specification Template in appendix B for an explanation of the sections and their contents.