Change Series: Streamlining SMB Project Signoff
Victor Cheung Style Synthesis:
We will not send Project Signoff to small medium-sized clients.
- Industry Best Practice:
Us: Always have adopted
Industry: Zendesk, Taskfeed, Gainsight, Pendo. But how to manage risks?
2. Better Time Management Method
Old: 1. Unclear when to re-sign. Currently, roughly 1 in 2–3 clients will have an updated timeline. It’s a bit unclear when we need to have a client re-sign project plan with such high frequency. 2. Administrative-heavy / Time-consuming. 3. Questionable effectiveness: The client may forget the timeline if you don’t have a way to remind them often. Project Plan sitting on the side collecting dust without complementing way of tracking those timelines (email reminder/meeting reminder) 4. Not enforceable: It’s not legally binding if the client doesn’t sign. There is really no consequence and client doesn’t have the incentive to sign it.
New: We can better manage time with an alternative method: we send more frequent email reminders including hours, timeline, and to-do list update. With Taskfeed implemented, it’s fairly easy to grab current hours and forecasted timeline to give client that visibility. We are exploring how we can get more client report from Taskfeed next.
3. Better Scope Management Method
Old: 1. Unclear when to re-sign based on scope: Unclear when the new scope needs to be updated. 2. Little Relevancy for our Product / Customer segment: for the nature of our product, it’s SaaS product, not an ERP with customizable options. So the Scope we are talking about is more of “Usage Scope” instead of the traditional “Product Development Scope”. Out of scope items means it’s either insufficient “Usage/Setup Scope” or it comes in the form of Feature Request. For the former option, we are already a dedicated process on Launch Plan to tackle it. For the latter, we have an improved product feature process to manage it.
New: We can better manage scope with better AE notes & updated launch plans; More process created to allow both clients and PSC to better understand the “scope” — Updated Launch Plan contains more specific/detailed questions on Phased Rollout scope, including Location, Department, Users, Use Cases will be included. Week 0 (client to enter with rational) and allocate more time during KO to discuss it. It’s not an afterthought but proactive management. It’s not a few seconds to brush over the scope. But spend dedicated time & efforts to have the client consider the rationale and reasoning behind their scope. With more detailed discussion and careful pre-planning, we are expecting to see client has an easier time sticking to their original scope.
Something to note: This analysis is only for Pioneer clients. It’s unclear if the same process is applicable to Voyager and Enterprise clients. That needs to be evaluated separately.
Conclusion:
Acknowledgement: We have the project signoff process for a good reason.
Transition: But as we start to streamline onboarding experience for different customer tiers/pioneer, and have ongoing various process changes within our team and with other teams, our observation is that this method is no longer the most effective way to serve its purpose.
New Direction: we can increase our productivity, efficiency, better consistent user experience to help customers achieve what they want without having to manage. We will not send the project plan signoff document to our Pioneer client.
