The Responsibility to Discover:
Whether it’s due to budgetary constraints or excitement to just get started, oftentimes the discovery process gets cut short. The problem that this raises is arguably both practical and ethical. Practically speaking, of course, the lack of a sufficient discovery phase means you may or may not have considered all necessary components of the project. You don’t know where you’re going and the map to get you wherever you end up is poorly made. But, taking a step back and looking from an ethical perspective, not having that consideration of all necessary components prevents you from being transparent.
Managing client expectations is a core responsibility of a project manager and to do so effectively requires transparency. It’s easy to fall into the trap of being a people pleaser and just telling the client whatever you think they want to hear. But, if you promise a deliverable in a week, and your team does not deliver on the promised date, the client will likely (and justifiably) be upset, disappointed, and, possibly, distrust you.
So, be transparent. Simple. But, to be transparent and have anything useful to say to the client, you have to know what you’re talking about. And I don’t mean you have to know everything a developer knows or fully understand the intricacies of what the architect has outlined, but you do need to be able to speak to progress and milestones. For me to do this effectively, I need a map.
In this context, a map is a scoped outline of the project deliverables. Having a map like this allows me to approach estimates much more specifically. Great. So, now, I’m able to be transparent with the client because I know what I’m talking about - just have to draw the map. But where does this scoped outline of project deliverables even come from?
Discovery.
For there to be a scoped deliverable, the deliverable must be well-defined. It can’t just be a beautiful idea in someone’s head; it has to be communicated, concrete, with as few stones left unturned as possible. What has been most useful for me, as a project manager, is a thorough discovery process. At DBA, we call this the Analyze phase.
I’m sure there are a hundred ways to approach this, but taking the time to mock up, walk through, and explore all conceivable user flows, allowing time to repeat actions multiple times and find what annoys or confuses me, without fail, has led to a tighter and more productive development process. It’s rehearsal before you take the show in front of an audience. After a thorough discovery phase, I am able not only to communicate estimates on deliverables with a far higher degree of accuracy, but the deliverables tend to be delivered closer to the optimistic side of the estimate. **
As a project manager, I have an ethical responsibility to be transparent with my client. I am in this role because there is a chain of trust not only between the consultancy and the client, but between me and all of the project stakeholders, including the client. If I tell the client untrue fairy tales of project completion, that chain is eroded and I have conducted myself unethically. I must be as transparent as logistically and legally possible with those who trust me in my role. But, once more, for that transparency to be useful at all, I have to know what I’m talking about.
To be transparent, I need informed estimates. To have informed estimates, I need to have a scoped deliverable. To have a scoped deliverable, there must be sufficient discovery.
