How to control customer demand in the project?

All project managers who have worked on more than one project in China may have experienced this situation: the sales staff of the company excitedly handed you a contract signed with customers, claiming that the project had been done again, but when you took the contract (or power of attorney), there were only a few lines about the scope of the project, either some cliché s or just what kind of modules the project contained, and only one or two sentences about the specific business. If yes, in another case, in the course of the project, customers keep proposing changes to the handover system. What is more exasperating is that some problems have begun to change. One day, the customer suddenly found that the situation was wrong and asked you to change it. The demand of customers seems to be endless forever. How should the project undertaker deal with this frustrating situation? 1. Why is the customer demand excessively inflated? As the undertaker of the project, it is the sacred duty of the project team to complete the project with limited resources within the specified time and satisfy the company and the final customers. But in order to satisfy customers, do we have to meet all their needs? What should I do if the project fails because it constantly meets the needs of customers? In order to find out these reasons, we must first find the root causes of these problems. 1. When signing the contract, the project scope was not clearly stated. This is one of the most common problems, and it is precisely these problems in the early days that did not attract enough attention from the project team, which led to the endless revision of the later projects. 2. Customers and project teams have different understandings of the requirements of written documents. This situation is also very common. Although the customer has confirmed the project scope statement submitted by the project team, and the project team has completely completed the contents specified in this document, the customer still requires changes. When the project team confronted the customer with a piece of paper, it was found that the customer also recognized this requirement, but the customer's cognition was completely different from that of the project team. Give a simple example: the customer asked the system to be able to sign electronically, and the project team members simulated one and automatically generated the customer's signature in the system. But when I handed it over to the customer, I found that the electronic signature required by the customer actually wanted to transplant the original handwritten signature work into the electronic system, so that the leader could generate a handwritten signature through drawing in the document! Sometimes it is a little negligence at the beginning, which leads to a lot of modifications or even delays in the later stage of the project. 3. Before closing the account, the customer always has the original intention of doing everything to the fullest. Generally speaking, before the project is closed, customers will try their best to force the project team to solve it, because the general customer psychology will think that once the project is closed, it will be difficult to find project team members to modify the business system. Because IT companies are highly mobile, even if contractors can be found in the future, the project team members who started the project may not be there, or many companies have neglected the customers who have closed their accounts because of their busy business. 4. Project team members always make concessions to customers unconditionally, and customers are responsive. The starting point of this approach is good, the purpose is to make customers completely satisfied, but in fact this approach may not achieve the goal. The general customer demand is bottomless, which often brings many negative effects to the whole project. Of course, if we control customers' demands too much, customers will definitely not be satisfied. Second, to solve the above-mentioned project problems and their causes, combined with the lessons and experiences of some previous projects, I feel that the following points can effectively shield the problem of excessive customer demand and make the project more beautiful. Take precautions: at the beginning of the project, we must set clear project objectives and scope, and let the main stakeholders (the most important of course, the end customers) confirm. No matter how you get the project, as a project manager, you can take three steps in the early stage of the project. The first question that comes to mind should be "why", that is, what is the purpose of the customer's project. Knowing this, we can think more about what customers think in future work, avoid the wrong direction of the project, and finally strive to achieve a win-win situation. After knowing "why", we should know "what to do" very clearly. A better way is to summarize the whole project in one or two very concise sentences. We can summarize all the sub-tasks in the project in this way, which can make the front-office business personnel and the back-office R&D personnel get the message, which shows that the project director has a good grasp of the content of the project in the general direction. Finally, think about how to do it. This stage is also very important for unfamiliar projects. It is absolutely worthwhile to spend more energy at this stage. Of course, according to the specific situation, some unnecessary work can be simplified at this stage of demand research, which requires the project manager to have the ability to balance those conflicting project objectives. In practical work, this requires a process. It is worth noting that after the requirements are sorted out and documented, it is best for the project team members to tell the customers their summarized requirements in detail first. In practice, this method can not only greatly reduce the vague problems between project personnel and customers at the business level, but also well identify potential problems and master some communication skills, which will also make customers feel more deeply that contractors attach importance to them. In addition, if the demand personnel in the early stage of the project are very ignorant of technology, it is best to communicate with the R&D personnel before submitting the demand to the customer every time according to the actual situation, so as to avoid giving unnecessary commitments to the customer and define the workload more accurately. In a word, it will take some time to calculate the project scope effectively, but it will also save resources and money and solve the future headache of the project, such as the change of demand (scope). Another noteworthy issue is that after the requirements of the project have been confirmed several times, it is best to let the powerful customers confirm it clearly, preferably by signing it in writing. This persuasive document will play a very good role in the future when customers change their needs. Obviously, because the customer signs it, he will always go back on his word and definitely lose money. Even if the project has to be greatly adjusted because of business changes, the project team will be in a favorable position and will not be very dissatisfied with its own company. Of course, for customers, these well-understood needs will also be used as the basis for delivering products in the future, so as to know fairly well and eliminate unnecessary doubts. This is equally binding on both parties and is very beneficial. Flexibility: Always communicate with customers in case of changes. The project has been implemented in the final stage, and customers suddenly put forward new requirements or request to modify existing requirements, which will make the project manager very embarrassed: on the one hand, we should try our best to meet the needs of customers, on the other hand, we should not make too many changes to the system, which will affect the progress. This situation is not only related to the demand stage, but also shows that there is no close contact with customers and lack of communication during the implementation process. Analyze from the customer's psychology. Because of the particularity of software, customers usually pay great attention to the later service, especially in China, most of the software made by everyone is closely related to the actual business. As a project manager, it is very taboo to ignore the customer in the process of doing the project, and then suddenly have a lot of contact with the customer when it is finally delivered. It is very likely that there will be problems in the later implementation process, and you are relatively unfamiliar with customers before, which is likely to cause great risks. It is safer to let the project team keep in touch with customers during the project, get to know each other and establish a more harmonious communication atmosphere, so as to prepare for possible conflicts with customers in the key implementation handover stage in the future. It is worth mentioning that during the project, the progress of the project is presented to customers in stages, so that customers can have a more direct and intuitive understanding of the project, find and solve problems as soon as possible, and avoid future troubles. Through continuous communication, customers can realize that the project team always stands from the customer's point of view, and the main person in charge of customers can deeply feel that they are an important member of the project team, sharing weal and woe, and the project team can provide customers with perfect and continuous follow-up services. Even if the preliminary work is well done, in many cases, demand changes are inevitable. The project supervisor keeps abreast of changes and possible changes through a good communication mechanism. Once changes occur, the project team must calmly deal with these problems. Generally, we can first evaluate the demand change according to the four steps of product analysis-> cost/benefit analysis-> alternatives-> expert judgment, and form a written description of the project scope change as soon as possible as the basis for future project decision. Of course, it is safer to let the customer confirm the obvious changes (signature is the best choice), especially after evaluating the possible increase in workload caused by the changes, so that the customer realizes that too many changes will obviously lead to the delay of the project, and the customer is responsible for it. When customers put forward demand changes, they must master certain communication skills, and they must not always accommodate customers unconditionally. Generally speaking, customers are not familiar with it. They think that simple things may consume a lot of unnecessary energy of the project team, so don't think that what the customer says must be what he wants! Most customers are the sparks that pop up in their minds at the first time, so the project team members should calmly analyze: what the customers want to achieve and grasp the essence of the problem. Generally speaking, there are many ways to realize the essential needs of customers. In the communication with customers, we must avoid confrontation with customers. At the beginning, listen carefully to customers' opinions and ask more questions like "What do you think?" After the customer makes his ideas clear, the members of the project team had better evaluate the customer's suggestions quickly. If it is too difficult to implement, they can give customers some more pertinent suggestions and ask more questions like "Do you think this will work?" In fact, the same goal can be achieved. "Finally, there is an important process, which is to confirm the conclusion of this communication with customers. In a word, overall project management is an ability to balance those conflicting project objectives. It seems simple, but it is actually very complicated. In the process of the project, the project supervisor should learn how to control common changes, control the wanton expansion of customer demand, and ensure the healthy and stable progress of the project. 1. When the project starts, the company will approve the start of the new project phase. 2. In the process of preparing the scope plan, a specification will be made to describe the things to be done in the project. 3. In the scope definition, the main part of the project is divided into smaller parts. 4. In the scope audit, it is necessary to accept the scope of the project. 5. In the scope change control, with the passage of time, it is necessary to supervise the project scope change.