Client Quickstart

No Time to Waste!

  • They have a brand-new not very clear idea
  • They need to see something next week
  • They will user test the app right after that
  • You haven't a clue what they want or if you can do it

Meetings

  • Winter:
  • Spring:
    • "Free-range" clients from Northwestern, Evanston, Chicago, sometimes farther
    • Meetings arranged by client and dev team

Kickoff Meeting Agenda

  • Meet and greet
  • Establish communication channel
  • Schedule midpoint check-in time and method
  • Define what you'll deliver in a week

First deliverable

  • By end of the kickoff meeting, you need to have a specifc example of a slice that you believe you can definitely implement in less than a week
  • That slice should be based on the third panel of their four-panel scenario, fleshed out with realistic data from the client

Communication

  • Determine primary channels for communication
  • Whatever ALL members already use (email, group text, Slack Messenger, iMessage, ...)
  • Determine a single primary contact on both sides (see next slide)

Primary Contact

  • To reduce mixed messages and enable easy search of message history...
  • One person on each team
    • sends all inter-team messages after team discussion
    • CCs everyone on both teams (but not me) if emailing

Weekly client meetings

  • 60-minute face-to-face iteration planning meeting
  • 20-minute midpoint check-in two or three days (not more, not less)
  • Listen actively
    • Have a designated notetaker
    • Listen for signs of concern or uncertainty
    • Circulate a summary of the week's tasks and any questions within 24 hours

Midpoint Check-in

  • Demo rough draft of upcoming deliverable
  • Review issues identified, and potential resolutions:
    • Confusions: offer two or three likely interpretations
    • Obstacles: offer two or three alternatives you could do pretty quickly

Client polling

  • Don't assume all is well
  • Every week, ask the client two questions:
    • Did you expect something you didn't see?
    • Did you see something you didn't expect?
  • Don't ask for a rating. People hate to rate people.

What makes a good deliverable

  • Clean and simple but not plain
    • Style with CSS framework, like Material, Bootstrap, Tailwind, ... not plain HTML
  • No bugs or misspellings
  • Get realistic data from the clients
  • Build for easy change

Project Backlog

Client Project Checklist

What you need

  • Clear contact channels
  • Fixed, well-attended midweek checkin
  • Team task tracker and note master
  • Shared document space
  • Shared project backlog
  • Shared iteration taskboard

Team Roles

  • Task tracker
    • Keeps and constantly checks the list of tasks to do, deadlines
  • Note taker
    • Takes notes during (not after) client meetings
      • Will not be active in conversations
    • Summarizes notes to send in post-meeting summary
  • These roles can rotate

Shared document space

  • Everything in the 394 Shared Client Project folder will is automatically shared with all the clients.

Iteration Taskboard

  • Trello or some similar tool is best
  • Editable by clients and developers
  • Only stories for the current and next iteration
  • All stories with acceptance test example and UI sketches
    • Even better if also user testing plans
  • Clients sort stories in Ready to do
  • Clients move stories from Ready to review to Done

Thanks to Hakim El Hattab for RevealJS