As IT project mangers or consultants, we head into engagements – or potential engagements – with clients with certain expectations.  Or at least certain hopes – mostly in terms of how they’re going to help us get through the work we’re going to be doing for them.  Some of it needs to be written down as assumptions and some of it is just things we think we should be able to expect.



Remember that Mel Gibson movie, “What Women Want?”  Some sort of fluke accident allows Mel’s character to suddenly be able to hear what women think.  What if we could do that with our project customers?  For the purpose of this article, I’m going to draw on my consulting and project management experience and knowledge and take a cut at what I think would be three primary things that our project customers are thinking as we head into a project with them.  You may have your own thoughts on this and I’d really like to hear from you if you do.  As for me, here’s my cut…



They want you to do all the work



You may come into the engagement with the thought of assigning several to-dos’ to the customer in order to help you along the way.  In reality, your customer is likely expecting you to do all the work.  They would prefer their role to be very cursory…. Just along for the ride to provide some information along the way as to their needs and then to test and approve the final solution.  They hired you to do the work – they don’t necessarily want to be considered as part of the ‘team.’  They want you to put the schedule together and manage everything – and they’ll be content to just view it through a tool you give them like Seavus’ Project Viewer.  They’re looking for much more of a hands-off role than what you’re probably coming in expecting.



They’re already busy



Whoever you’re working with on the project customer side – unless it’s the CEO – already has a boss who is expecting 8-10 hours of normal work out of them.  This project may help their job or it may be something for the organization as a whole.  Either way, it’s not their job – they already have one.  It’s critical that you keep that in mind when you feel frustrated at your inability to get much time or cooperation from them.  It may mean reduced billable hours for you or it may mean increased unproductive billable hours – depending on the way your contract is set up.  At any rate, it can and will be frustrating.  But in nearly every case, your project is not their job.  Remember that and be thoughtful in your demands on your project customer contact’s time.  They will thank you for it.



They don’t consider their staff competent enough to really assist



Remember why you were brought in to consult in the first place.  You are the expert.  You’d like to think that you have access to many subject matter experts (SMEs) who can help you with the work you’re going to perform.  At least from an informational standpoint.  And you may even get some of that help.  But from the project customer’s perspective, none of their employees were competent enough to do this project for the company – even though they have the company and issue familiarity.  The project customer does not consider anyone internally to be competent enough to do the work.  And they’re probably right.  Go into it with that expectation so that you don’t become overly frustrated when you start to get different or conflicting information and direction from the SMEs you talk to.



Summary