Pivot!
I was recently part of a project domain discovery meeting where the client dropped a bombshell at the beginning of the second day which completely changed the direction of the project. It can be very jarring, but it’s important to build what the client needs, even if that’s not what they thought they wanted yesterday.
The initial plan was to replace a system that had been built in-house which had usability issues. It had grown organically and was now spanning multiple SaaS providers.
But what caused the client to change direction so dramatically? It was one small feature being removed from MVP (minimum viable product) as it didn’t exist in the current system. They felt this was key, but this went against what was originally asked for, so questions were asked and when pressed on what would add the most value they suggested something entirely new which wouldn’t even live in the system we were looking to replace. Suddenly we are looking at a completely new application which hadn’t even been mentioned up until this point.
That feature still wasn’t in MVP after the dust had settled.
I think we should have done a little more probing on “why” to understand the real problem we were trying to solve, but the client came so confidently with the “what” that it was never scrutinised enough to see the misalignment.
When working with a client, even if they are sure of what they want, it’s important to take the time to understand the problem they are trying to solve and the value that the solution will deliver to help determine that you are on the right course.
The questions are deceptively simple, “what problem does this solve?” and “what does success look like?”, but it’s far too easy to ask them and accept the answers at face value. We must interrogate them and keep asking “why” until we reach the root of the problem.