Red Squirrel Reflections Dave Hoover explores the psychology of software development

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Customer Appreciation
Friday, November 14, 2003

"Making partners with customers means they become more likely to understand technical constraints." --Steve McConnell, p. 238, Rapid Development

Steve is singing the praises of customer-oriented practices, yet another apparent overlap with XP. The above quote forced me to stop reading and start writing: it concisely describes my experiences with The Planning Game.

These experiences are fresh in my mind because I facilitated a Planning Game (release planning, not iteration planning) this week. It is my second such experience and boy is it easier the second time around! In my first Planning Game experience, after we had estimated a few stories, the customer interjected, "I think we may have more than 3 months of work here" (1/16/03). In our collaborations this week, our new customer surprised us by making the exact same comment.

If you're a developer who is accustomed to repeatedly defending and reasserting your estimates, hearing a comment like this from a customer is priceless.

We keep the customer with us as we estimate our user stories. While some people were nervous about wasting the customer's time listening to technical discussions, I insisted on the customer's attendance. Inevitably, as we estimate, we need clarifications that only the customer should provide. And equally importantly, the customer catches a glimpse of the amount of work that goes into developing their system. This inevitably leads to a more appreciative customer, and a stronger partnership.

"Good relations with customers improve development speed. If you have a cooperative rather than antagonistic relationship and good communications with your customer, you eliminate a significant source of inefficiency and major development errors." --Steve McConnell, p. 236, Rapid Development

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