Business analysis and customer collaboration: the key to project success
As you would expect, the answers to these two questions are not always the same and it’s important that we work collaboratively with our customers to get to the heart of their business to understand exactly what the project is all about. That’s why we invest heavily in business analysis. Our project team will spend a lot of time in face-to-face and online meetings with our clients working to define the project purpose, the product vision and the customer journey, often taking them through UX workshops to really unearth the needs and wants for the project.
It might seem like a big commitment from both parties but ultimately it helps everyone to get to the right product, faster and more efficiently.
This time invested in getting to know our customers, their businesses and the project helps to ensure three key things:
By asking questions early on you can make sure that what you think you need will actually fulfil your customer requirements and ensure that the initial idea is actually the best one to move forward with.
These questions should include things like what will the product do for your company and your company’s customers? What is the main purpose of it? What is the key functionality it needs and what tasks does it need to perform for your customers? Who are the target users of the product and why will the product make their lives easier?
The answers to these questions can be compared to the initial brief to sense check the project goals or to help develop that initial idea into one that is more suited to the needs and expectations of your customers.
If the product is an application or a digital platform, what functionality will it have? How do you make sure that you don’t strip it back too much (so that it does not solve the problem), versus how do you make sure you don’t try to do too much (so that it is confusing and offers too many options instead of serving the initial purpose)?
If it’s a website, should it be responsive across multiple devices? Should it be translated into multiple languages to serve its purpose or is it not needed at that stage? How interactive should it be to appeal to the audience, provide better value for people and generate more income for the business? How should it be designed to deliver a seamless experience?
The more detail we can go into, the more we can show our clients exactly what’s involved, and as such, ensure expectations and timescales are accurate and realistic.
Are all the functionalities you initially included really needed to make your product work and are they even wanted by your customers?
Can it actually be done in a simpler way without losing value?
The outcomes to these questions can be invaluable to both project success and project efficiency. They can shape an idea into a proper project scope and by combining the good technical knowledge and innovative thinking of our team at Leighton start to bring your project to life.
As you would expect, the answers to these two questions are not always the same and it’s important that we work collaboratively with our customers to get to the heart of their business to understand exactly what the project is all about. That’s why we invest heavily in business analysis. Our project team will spend a lot of time in face-to-face and online meetings with our clients working to define the project purpose, the product vision and the customer journey, often taking them through UX workshops to really unearth the needs and wants for the project.
It might seem like a big commitment from both parties but ultimately it helps everyone to get to the right product, faster and more efficiently.
This time invested in getting to know our customers, their businesses and the project helps to ensure three key things:
By asking questions early on you can make sure that what you think you need will actually fulfil your customer requirements and ensure that the initial idea is actually the best one to move forward with.
These questions should include things like what will the product do for your company and your company’s customers? What is the main purpose of it? What is the key functionality it needs and what tasks does it need to perform for your customers? Who are the target users of the product and why will the product make their lives easier?
The answers to these questions can be compared to the initial brief to sense check the project goals or to help develop that initial idea into one that is more suited to the needs and expectations of your customers.
If the product is an application or a digital platform, what functionality will it have? How do you make sure that you don’t strip it back too much (so that it does not solve the problem), versus how do you make sure you don’t try to do too much (so that it is confusing and offers too many options instead of serving the initial purpose)?
If it’s a website, should it be responsive across multiple devices? Should it be translated into multiple languages to serve its purpose or is it not needed at that stage? How interactive should it be to appeal to the audience, provide better value for people and generate more income for the business? How should it be designed to deliver a seamless experience?
The more detail we can go into, the more we can show our clients exactly what’s involved, and as such, ensure expectations and timescales are accurate and realistic.
Are all the functionalities you initially included really needed to make your product work and are they even wanted by your customers?
Can it actually be done in a simpler way without losing value?
The outcomes to these questions can be invaluable to both project success and project efficiency. They can shape an idea into a proper project scope and by combining the good technical knowledge and innovative thinking of our team at Leighton start to bring your project to life.
