[Sigia-l] love thy client (was Re: [Sigia-l] "Study: Content Management Tools Fail")

[Listera]

"David Heller" wrote:

> The knowledge is definitely burried in there somewhere that's for sure...

By far the most difficult thing in a project is to figure out what the
client *really* wants. I don't mean what the specs should be for a given
system, but how that system gets positioned within conflicting power
struggles in that organization. They may tell you that they need a CMS and
describe in detail what it should do, but what the CEO, for instance, may
really need is to operationally tie together its far-flung offices. The
former is more of a technical problem, the latter is far more of a political
issue. In this case, the CMS (no matter how well designed and how well
intentioned) won't amount to much unless the organization has the political
will to unify its operations across competing units.

Figuring this out is difficult for an outsider. This is another reason why I
try to get to the prototype as soon as possible. It's easy for people to
ignore charts, wireframes, etc. It's more difficult to ignore a living,
breathing prototype that looks like something that can affect everyone's
work habits soon. It focuses the mind and causes all the arguments,
opposition, etc., to come out of the woodwork into the open. Then you get a
better sense of where people/departments stand and the product can then be
better shaped technically to suit the 'real' purpose.

Ziya
Nullius in Verba