10.7 Building Customer Confidence

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When a baby begins to learn to walk, it starts out learning to stand, keep balanced, look where it wants to go, and take baby steps. The baby will often fall down. It gets up and tries again and again until it walks. Project Managers do not have the luxury of falling down and trying over and over again until they get it right. They are expected to know how to prevent themselves from falling down and are rarely afforded a second chance if they do fall. One thing they have learned over time is to control risk, take calculated steps that are measured in terms of milestones, and decompose the larger task at hand into chunks that can be observed by the user or customer. As the customer sees the project arrive at and surpass these milestones, confidence is slowly gained in the project leader’s ability to deliver the goods. The more milestones are achieved, the more confidence is gained. On top of the achievement of milestones, the project leader must be able to effectively communicate the achievements to the customer in a way the customer will understand.

Generally, when the customer is involved through adequate representation in the Core Team, this becomes a process of status updates and progress meetings. As the project nears the next milestone in the plan, the customer attempts to hold the project leader to the target of completion, regardless of the state of the project. This places great pressure on a project leader to hit targets and communicate any deviations well in advance of the meeting. Ideally, the project leader will see and mitigate such factors before they become burning issues, but sometimes it is out of his or her control.

For example, I once led a project that was very tightly scheduled, and it wound up being delayed by two weeks; a computer manufacturer failed to deliver the necessary equipment on time because it was heavily backordered. Only by forcing them to deliver equipment of lesser capability on a loaner basis until our proper equipment arrived was I able to keep the project from falling even farther behind. The point here is that sometimes, despite the best plans and intentions, things are just out of your control and you will have to get creative to keep your project on track. Wizardly advice– be ready to adjust, adapt, and overcome.

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