How to do demand research

It is one of the key elements of the project's success or failure to investigate the adequacy of a project, and I don't think any of the project managers disagree. But I said the demand research is not just take a piece of paper to remember what the customer said is over, the research as the name implies is to investigate and research the customer's ideas, I feel from the following several steps to start:

What does the customer want?

What are you doing here?

Why do you think so?

Will there be any other ideas?

Here also said a most basic, only talk about the project do not talk about money, we can say that the price we need to go back to the detailed analysis of your needs to provide you with a holistic solution, you can rest assured that the price must be reasonable, will not exceed your budget (really super). Because now talk about money is waiting to be cut, first cut your price, then cut your time, the last dot function, point rebate, left a knife right knife, cut to the project blood to death also dragged your tail. The account managers and project managers here should be careful.

Through the above four steps our goal is: to understand the customer's requirements, to identify the requirements of the logic, the customer wants the results, while eliminating the risk of development, mining and control potential requirements. Let's talk about it in one by one.

First step what the customer wants

This is the simplest step, take out our notebooks. What the? As a project manager, you haven't? Too failed, to find the boss to apply for a, not to IBM, Dell, at least a soft-skinned can write a notebook bar, (I use a 32 open soft leather notebook), a good notepad can let customers feel that you pay attention to this project, in the fixed Notepad is also convenient for us to query the past records in the future, This is important. Gossip Less, take this start to remember, let the customer began to say, he first said when we have to pay attention to several points, remember, less talk, if you have to speak that said: Good, OK, ah, no longer enjoyable to say OK, why? Because the customer is speaking, he probably at the same time thinking about what they want, do not interrupt his ideas, respect the other side of the expression of the right at the same time can let him put all the ideas of the systematic say, we remember, which feel the problem also first marked, and then again, this is one. Second, he said you also said, the more said more, a while off work, and finally found that today's result is the next time to continue to say. Now we are in the investigation stage, not yet to study, at least we do not know the whole idea of others. So remember more, say less.

OK, he said, now to us, first a piece of the retelling, in the retelling at the same time we can make recommendations, optimistic, is the proposal, not the opinion, so attitude to grasp, we are to help them do things, is to rationalize the needs of customers, simple, plainly is the procedure is not too complicated, the risk can be discharged completely , don't make a logical, complicated, and impractical thing come out. In this process, the second step is entered.

The second step is what the customer wants.

After listening to all the needs, we should be able to analyze the focus of what customers want, focus on starting research, retelling the needs of customers, do not think he said, you listen to understand, do not say: "I thought," thought to ask clearly, so I repeat at the same time with their own understanding explained again, then the customer began to hear you say , he began to understand what he had just said and what was wrong, the wrong will be supplemented, continue to write down, and then repeat the explanation. Do not be afraid of trouble, now say a few more times we are still polite, than in the future, we have a strong dispute over demand. And this is preferring, today I can explain to you clearly, in the future sign you don't say it's not the case. We enable the third step when we encounter more complex or bizarre problems in the requirements.

The third step is why he thinks so.

Most of the customers are not it experts, of course, there are self-righteous, these people want to give them face, face they will give you face in the future. Since it is not an IT expert to some of the problems may be in the implementation of the program is relatively simple, and they are mostly industry experts, to their own industry at least the company's industry processes are relatively clear, all of us need to understand their industry processes or business logic, Let's see what they want us to do with the program, what do they do? For example, product shipments to have an analysis function, the surface of a listen, what are you going to do? The original is to know how many goods per day, summary by class on the OK, customers talk about the demand, some people are accustomed to the function of the larger, nice, style, face, most often listen to the "Come, we make an ERP", "This piece I want to analyze statistics", "that piece I want to comprehensive query" What what system, what platform, Actually as its function is not so big, so it is necessary for us to analyze, but this is good, you say that the big, that is you accept big, big have big price, hehe! So the client says big is not bad. In addition, many key issues can be easily resolved by knowing what they want to do.

Now that he's done, you're done. Time is rich and repeat, chat and chat, nothing to pack up and leave, when you leave, don't forget to set a delivery solution to the time, he does not and you specify that he does not pay attention to at least not anxious, you do not and he set out that you are not serious. So set a time and we'll talk.

Don't tell me if there's a fourth step. Yes, this step back to the company slowly want to go, because this step is more complex.

Fourth step, will he have any other ideas?

The demand is over, come back we'll have to think about it, what does he want? What are you doing here? Why do you think so? Again, tired >_<, finally let's think about whether he has other ideas, why say this piece of complex? Some people say that we have to tap into potential needs and think of things that customers can't imagine. Yes, that's right. But that's not the point. The key is that some ideas can be dug, some can not dig, play minesweeper, this piece I like to call mine. Because some needs are beneficial to the project, some are not good for the project, and even ruin our project. For example, they want to be a personnel information record, you do not give analysis into personnel system management. This analysis has several possibilities, the customer accepted, according to the original budget to do it, finished, lost! Otherwise the customer said yes, I did not consider, I think again, have, the project did not believe son! So the excavation of latent demand in a certain range, this demand has a certain project experience to support, otherwise digging thunder on the overall loss. There are more complex to achieve the function, naturally do not dig, at least not in the development of this issue, and other customers, they mentioned a way to let them do two.

In addition to mine clearance is also related to the company's project strategy, to see if you want to lead a customer through a demand to become a long-term customer, not want to through what function to trigger their two development, which needs to communicate with the boss, so this step is more complex, more play minesweeper benefits, hehe

All right, four is all over, and to summarize: When doing research, focus on Why customers think so ? Instead of what to do? Because what he thinks is not necessarily right, we need to analyze what he ultimately wants and is the most concise solution, of course, we can exclude some of our own risks. It's important to understand why customers think so. At the same time to tap the latent demand in a certain range, customer development projects are budget, not because of the increase in the function of the addition, of course, some of the money items except.

All the analysis completed, to form a detailed document, I feel it is best to first out a functional description, and then a interface design.

Function Description: For example, the Contract Management module realizes the function of adding, deleting, changing and checking, which fields are involved in the increment and change, the logical relation of the fields, whether the deletion supports batch operation, and the query can be queried by what field. Finally, it shows whether there is a logical relationship between the other modules. In short you can write more detailed on more detailed (of course, also related to the size of the project, but there is a fixed document specification is not much difficult to write it), this thing signed the word cover chapter, we have a certain initiative, so that the least we have, it is better than no strong bar, there is absolutely no reason.

Interface Description: The page out of a sketch, with Word, VS, DW, everything, is the information placed, put the field on the page, the interface is mainly about what buttons, what things, which page has what features. Finally, the same signature and seal, why also signed and stamped, careful client side of the project during the separation of the shell, exempt customers to a comprehensive non-recognition.

The development of these two points is much more secure, but the project is not unchanged, the Ancients cloud, the project will never change is changing.

All these two documents just want to change more controllable later, change less, we have more reason. Have the opportunity to talk about future control again.

Transfer from http://www.cnblogs.com/SoulStore/archive/2008/07/25/1251140.html

How to do demand research