The “Infovestigation”
How to Interrogate Your Clients, Kindly
Many assumptions are made when people have an idea for a new application or improvements for an existing one. People often feel confident in moving forward with a general idea of what they want to build and rush into it, blind from their own excitement. It’s natural for people to fall in love with their own idea or ‘brainchild’. However, if the idea is not properly vetted and poorly executed, one’s ‘brainchild’ can turnout ‘buttugly’.
The best way to ensure that an application is built right the first time is to make sure you have the right specifications before the code begins. Getting the right specs is contingent on getting the right answers and getting the right answers is contingent on asking the right questions. With this post, I’d like to provide an outline and tips that may help you procure more useful information and produce more useful applications. Specifically, how to conduct effective meetings with clients and end users.
For starters, make sure you understand the format of the meeting, everyone involved and how much time you will have with them. There is a big difference between a casual one-on-one in a cozy office and moderating several people in a highly-secured boardroom. Do a little research on all your subjects so you know their role and what information they are most likely to contribute. Make a big effort to get end users in these meetings. You’d think this is a given, but because of old conventions it’s not uncommon to have a variety of managers, analysts and engineers invited to the meetings without anyone thinking it might be helpful to hear from someone who’s going to use the application.
Before you go into any meeting or interview session, make sure you’ve spent considerable time with any material that might help you understand what’s trying to be accomplished. If the app is for a similar purpose as some that already exists, spend time reviewing those apps. Observe their pros, cons and what makes them distinct. If the app is meant to digitize a process that is currently analogue, review the physical process and documents that are involved. If there is no existing equivalent, review apps with functions that might be applicable.
Make sure to prepare many questions and organize them for the format of the meeting. If you’re doing a casual one-on-one, your organization can be relatively loose. If your meeting is with several people for a very specific amount of time, you will need much more organization and some tricks to keep everyone on track. A lot of valuable time can get wasted if your subjects start trailing off on details that aren’t very important. So, have the most essential questions prepared, ordered and structured to create a consistent flow of relevant information.
In the inevitable event of subjects trailing off on details that are not pertinent, it’s good to have a device that puts them back on track without disrupting their output in general. Some might say let’s ‘bookmark’, ‘pin’ or put this idea in the ‘parking lot’ and return to it later. Make a deliberate effort show that you value their concern and are making a note of it. Then guide the subjects back to the greater conversation. The idea is not to be a forceful leader of the discussion but rather a methodical guide of it.
On the topic of being ‘methodical’, this is how you should guide the flow of output but not how you should guide the output itself. This means that you should not ‘lead’ the discussion. To ‘lead’ means to guide a subject to saying something that is based on your own assumptions or desires. The following illustration may provide better explanation.
