Recently, I am working on a project to build a production scheduling management system for a large-scale group's logistics service company.
Our project team is already familiar with the business development of this type of production scheduling system, and the requirements of the system are very simple, mainly to convert the current manual paper process scheduling report process into the corresponding computer data entry process, and According to the input data, the corresponding statistical report is automatically generated.
There are not many types of data entered in the entire system report, and the report is very simple, only a few reports are needed. The entire project cycle is also very short, only two months.
The original idea is to go to the customer site to do the research, confirm the good requirements, and go back to the company for development. After the development is completed, the server deployment test and the basic data entry preparation are completed before the delivery date required by the customer. However, two weeks after the start of the project, the client took a strong attitude and demanded that the project team must go to the client's site for development. In the case of several unsuccessful exchanges, the client was still the first, so he had to travel to the client's site to develop the project. .
This project has certain specificity. It is not only an annual work assessment project, but also the group has just completed the replacement of the leadership team. The new leader will come to inspect the logistics service company. This project is a bit like a facade project, which reflects the company's informatization. The results of the construction must be completed before the leaders come to inspect and evaluate, and sufficient time period for testing and basic data preparation must be set aside.
It was also very hard to go to the customer site for development. In order to ensure that the project is completed before this date that cannot be delayed, in the first two weeks, the daily working time is about 10 hours, and the project scale is not large, so the development is completed a lot in advance, the server is deployed, and testing and data are carried out. entered.
This is probably the basic situation of the project. Now that the project is online and running, customers are basically satisfied. There are problems, but the impact is not big. They are all minor modifications, and there are no fundamental requirements errors and bugs.
But during the development of the project, there are also a lot of unpleasant things. The feeling is mainly the mutual distrust between the client and the project team.
After the project was completed, after thinking about it, there were only a few reasons. There was no clarity at the beginning of the sale, the importance of the project to the client and the urgency of the time, especially on the project deadline, there was no room for beak. This project is the annual assessment project of the logistics company, especially the information center department, which directly affects the assessment results of this year.
The project team did not develop the project site at the beginning, the time was getting closer and closer to the deadline, but the customer could not see the shadow of the final software product. It happened, and it also laid a hidden danger for many dissatisfaction and complaints after entering the project site.
Since entering the project site, the client will report to the development office on time in the morning, noon and evening to inquire about the project progress. Customers are in a hurry, and we are also annoyed. We believe that we have been working hard day and night to catch up with the progress, and we have worked hard enough, and the project has been deployed to the server for viewing, but the customer does not buy it at all, and it is always a task. Our project is far from being completed. In this state, we often mention overtime to catch up with the progress. We have already worked like this, how can we work overtime? So the two sides did not have a good attitude towards each other.
It is still very depressing to think about it. We have also spent a lot of effort to enter the project site and work overtime to catch up with the progress of the project. Why is it still not recognized by the customer?
After the project came to an end, I sorted out the communication process between the project team and the customer representative as far as I know, and I felt that there were major errors in the focus of both parties.
The common concern of the customer representatives and the project team is whether this software system can ensure the completion of quality before the group leaders review and assess whether it can meet the business requirements and assessment standards. The difference in understanding between the two sides lies in this assessment standard.
The project team members, including the project manager, take it for granted that the standard for software completion is to be able to record the user's business data in the database completely and to generate corresponding data reports according to the user's requirements, so the software deployment is gradually completed on the server. In the process, we only provide a test account of the client code, and we can see the completed software functions and corresponding data reports.
As for the completion of the corresponding organizational structure of the system and the entry of basic user and user account authorization information, it has not been put on the official schedule, and the task has been placed after the formal testing of the system is completed.
Naturally, customer representatives will not complete the maintenance of huge and complicated basic data and business data, so the amount of data that can be seen is basically some of the test data we entered. In the eyes of customer representatives, these data are naturally not real business data.
Our technicians naturally believe that the ability to enter test data is no different from entering real business data. The code will be treated equally. In order to improve the initial maintenance of the data, many import functions are also provided to improve the efficiency of data maintenance. Naturally, the customer does not understand technology. In his eyes, being able to enter test data and entering business data are two different things. These two things are not the same. In particular, there is only one test account, and there is no user account corresponding to the organizational structure for operation, which is far from the completion of the system, even though it seems that the function list has been basically completed.
This is the understanding error of the assessment standard. The assessment standard is not that the system can operate normally, but that the management and maintenance of business data can be completed normally. The customer believes that as long as the system does not complete the maintenance of the basic organizational structure and account data, and does not use the accounts required by rules and regulations to complete the operation of business data, it cannot be regarded as complete.
In this way, we believe that the customer is dissatisfied with the number of functions completed by the system, but in fact, even if all of them are completed, in the eyes of the customer, as long as they do not follow the business process he thinks, the business account is used to complete the entry of real business data, showing true business data. The business report of the data is a function that is not really completed.
This misunderstanding is not made clear until the project development is nearing completion.
It stands to reason that the functions of the software system stipulated in the contract are almost completed, and the finishing process will be completed soon, but the customer still thinks that the system is too early for the real completion. The project team finally discovered the misunderstanding after communicating with the client many times.
The rest of the work is actually very easy. Import the organization data and user data provided by the user, assign the user permissions, and import and maintain some basic data. Soon, the customer will organize various business departments to start the system data entry. .
During this period, there were some small problems in the system, but the attitude of the customers changed obviously, and the feeling of oppressive tension almost disappeared. Once the system can be used according to the user's expected process, the client's tense Xuan immediately relaxes. In his eyes, displaying the functional interface and business reports of real business data is enough to complete the annual project assessment.
Thinking about it now, if there was more communication at that time, and the problem was considered from the perspective of users' understanding, maybe there would be no need for such a tense or even antagonistic atmosphere in the early stage of the project. We develop software day and night, but the simplest basic data maintenance work is not in place, or the plan is unreasonable. As a result, in the eyes of customers, there is no progress at all.