It is important to understand the customer's expectation prior to project delivery. This post is to explain how I can accomplish a satisfactory level or above with the customers during project delivery.
I've met a lot of project managers who only measure customer satisfaction at the end of the project, leaving a big and important scoring measure to the general results of their work. I personally like measuring at different points in time of project management. If not during the 5 process stages (Initiating, Planning, Executing, Monitoring, and Closing), at least at 3 points (Initiating, Executing, and Closing).
Why all this measures? To follow the Quality Management principle of "Prevention over Inspection". To "prevent", a survey on customer's expectations should be made to establish the metrics over which we will deliver. This way, we prevent avoiding mistakes, we would know what the customer is looking forward to. Then, we evaluate how well or bad we are executing. This is a good point to do some changes (although more expensive than at the beginning, it is still cheaper than arriving to the Closing stage and having to do even more expensive changes), or continue with the good work. At the end, during the Closing stage, it is more predictable that the Customer Satisfaction index is above a satisfactory level.
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