Sometimes, It's the Little Things...

Sometimes, it's the little things that make all the difference in the world for people...like the person that buys a $30k car just because they like where the cup holders are placed. Yes, I laughed at that too, but I've actually seen that happen.

Clients are people too, and I like to look for opportunities to provide a "better than expected value" for them. By that I mean, not just confining ourselves to what the SOW says we're to deliver, but other opportunities to deliver added value...whether it be handling little ancillary issues for them from a project management standpoint, or some helpful little documentation, or just a quick interpersonal check-in.

One way I go about this is I routinely (maybe daily) ask the stakeholder(s) "How can I help you? Is there anything I can do for you?" But you have to really mean it...come at it from a personal approach. The way I look at it, if it's something that lies outside of my realm of job duties, but isn't anything much to do, and helps them...it's worth a lot more in client relations in the long run than the few minutes it may take me to do. Maybe it's scheduling a meeting for them that they were going to schedule, but we're both attending, so I’ll do it. Sometimes, a client may be just overwhelmed with their workload and really flustered, and while there may not be anything I can do for them at the moment to lessen it, they appreciate just being asked. They like to know that someone just cares as a person. (NOTE: If you’re just not that kind of person, don’t attempt this. Being disingenuous with this is worse than not doing it at all)

Another way I've been doing this, as I alluded to, is supporting documentation. I’m talking about little “extras” that help the client, and might be something we would find useful ourselves anyway. By that I mean, we're not burning cycles producing some frivolous document just to provide that "added value" (i.e. make work), but something that they can actually use, but aren’t expecting...think Lean, and the categories of Value-Added, not Value-Added but Necessary, and Waste. Avoid the Waste.

Recently, I worked on a solo project for a client. There was a basic process logic flow that was an early deliverable, but there was one extra request from the client to annotate it. The annotation wasn't in the strict SOW, but I did it and in addition, color-coded the map by processing module to make it even easier to follow. As a result, It proved to be a valuable tool to for the client to easily communicate the logic of the application to both business stakeholders and technical staff. And while a lightweight technical manual was in the deliverable, I added details that weren't defined...such as including that diagram, writing detailed install instructions, etc. Again, these weren't strictly required, but were just something I wanted to include to make things a little easier, a little nicer for my client. And they appreciated it, which is what really made it all worthwhile.

Like I said, sometimes it can be those little details that really make the difference.