B-side project delivery often encounters sales pits.
One day, the company sales signed an order, and you, as a product manager and project manager, went to the customer's site. As a result, you find that the contract contains many unfamiliar technical terms, such as artificial intelligence, algorithmic models, metaverse, and blockchain. You don't understand these technologies, and the company doesn't have the relevant R&D personnel, let alone realize these functions.
Why are these demands outrageous? The reason may be that the sales do not confirm the product features, but instead casually promise. Customers aren't tech-savvy and may not really need these capabilities. So, as a product manager, you have to fill in these holes and implement various requirements. This may require the company to invest manpower and material resources, and may even lose money. How to solve the pit filling behavior of sales?
· First, in the process, the product manager should participate in the sales process, confirm the functional scope of the system, and ensure that the company's standardized products can cover most of the functions.
· Second, after the software project contract is signed, the product manager should work with the project manager to sort out the functions and determine which functions can be covered by the standardized product and which functions need to be redeveloped. During the delivery process, customers should be guided to use standardized functions as much as possible, and the development of non-standardized functions should be reduced.
Because customers may not understand their real needs, the guidance of product managers and project managers is especially important at this time. If both the product manager and the project manager are newbies, plus a non-tech-savvy customer, the software delivery project may go on endlessly and end up being a mess.
· 3. In the delivery process, any confirmation of requirements requires formal email confirmation or written confirmation with Party A's owner. While this will lead to a change in requirements, at least evidence remains. In the follow-up tearing, evidence can be produced to explain the situation to the boss of the company and the owner's management. You see, this requirement has changed several times, there are official confirmation documents, so the owners and company owners may look at your hard work and let you go.
What other pitfalls have you encountered in delivering projects? Welcome to share in the comment area.
