Managing customer expectations is a necessary condition for project success.

Working several years ago on a project to develop a corporate management system, I learned a good lesson about the need to manage customer expectations throughout the project.

Before starting work, our team carefully studied the technical specifications generated by the customer, provided their comments on it (most of which were agreed upon), detailed the technical specifications as much as possible and carried out detailed planning of the project, trying to eliminate the possibility of all kinds of misinterpretations. During the implementation, all the main project management processes were built. In particular, as part of communications management, regular meetings were held with the customer's supervisor to confirm the correct implementation of the terms of reference.

3 months before the end of the project, the project manager from the contractor's side began to go to an appointment with the customer's general director to demonstrate interim results. The director allocated no more than 15 minutes for such meetings and, after listening to a short report, each time he said something like: "I understand. Everything is going according to plan, right? Well, great." We (as a team of performers) were pleased that the general director had no comments.

However, during the submission of the final result, the general director began to ask questions, from which it became clear that he saw the result differently from how we presented it. And I, as the curator of the service on the part of the contractor, did not find anything smarter than to get a detailed technical specification and a schedule network model with the words: "We did everything in accordance with the original agreements, which you also signed."

After these words of mine, the general director instructed his subordinates to make sure that the points of the technical specification were actually fulfilled, and then stated that he confirmed to us payment for the work performed, but he no longer wanted to deal with our company. Yes, we received payment for the work in full, but we no longer worked with this client.

At first, our team felt that we were one hundred percent right - after all, we really successfully implemented the management processes for this project, fulfilled the specifications to the letter, and did not receive any critical comments until the last moment. However, later, having analyzed what happened with a cool head, we came to the conclusion that we had not fully developed a very important project management process - stakeholder management.

A number of project management standards highlight the processes of organizing interaction with interested parties (stakeholders) as a separate group, thereby emphasizing their importance. In the description of such processes, special attention is paid to managing the customer's expectations - no matter how strange it may sound, expectations can differ dramatically from what is written in the technical specifications (especially when it comes to intellectual services).

What did we do wrong during the implementation of the above project?

• First of all, we clearly did not involve the CEO enough in the progress of the project. It is clear that he is very busy, and he would have little time for us. But nevertheless, it was necessary to demonstrate them to him from the receipt of the first intermediate results, explain their usefulness and read the feedback. The ideal situation is formal agreement on intermediate results after their demonstration.
• Secondly, during our communication with the CEO, we did not clarify wishes and expectations for future results. Even if these expectations differ from the formal technical specifications, it would be possible to maneuver in advance and manage the risks of final dissatisfaction. It is also possible that the team could replace some of the work and results with others - expected - in advance and re-sign the terms of reference. Subsequently, it would be possible to adjust some project management processes to the new reality.
• Thirdly, even if there were still questions at the end, it was necessary not to refer to the signed document, immediately moving the conversation to a formal level, but to clarify the questions that arose and analyze the possibility of implementation. Often the benefits from the customer's wishes being realized exceed the costs of their implementation.

If we implemented the above steps and paid more attention to the process of managing key stakeholders, our team would be able to better manage (and address) customer expectations, as well as increase the likelihood of continuing to work with this client.

The above example demonstrates that focusing solely on the "triangle of project constraints" (timelines, budget, quality) is not a 100% guarantee of success. There is a need to pay attention to most project management processes - especially those related to key stakeholders.