Productivity Tip: Talk with Your Customer

It’s easy to work hard and create something nobody wants - I don’t consider this a productive use of your time, while technically you are producing something you can get nearly the same effect by doing nothing, that is why it’s important to talk with your clients or customers.

You have to talk to your customers directly, don’t settle for documents (requests, specification and such) or experts that explain what the customer wants – and you have to ask questions and find the motivation behind what the customer is asking for.

The customer doesn’t know what you can do for him or her, usually the customer can’t even clearly describe what he really wants and most of the time what the customer wants is not the best solution for the customer’s problem.

So, it’s up to you, before getting your work done you have to make sure you are working on the right thing and the only way is to have a nice long talk with whoever you do the work for.

For a concrete example read If You Want to Write Useful Software, You Have to Do Tech Support.

posted @ Tuesday, June 30, 2009 2:40 PM

Comments on this entry:

# re: Productivity Tip: Talk with Your Customer

Left by Evgeni at 7/8/2009 6:33 AM

Being the customer of your own product is the best gauge of product's usefulness

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