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Ask HN: How do you identify the people to interview on an IT project?
I'd like your input for an article I'm writing.
Let’s say you’re starting a new IT project. You're brought in to make it happen (as contractor, staff, freelancer). It could be custom software; a migration to cloud services; a shiny new IoT project. Whatever. You’re in charge of the design (or an important part of it), and making sure that the resulting system makes everybody happy.
How do you make sure that you are interviewing the right people to find out what “make them happy” looks like? What do you do to get input from the people who matter for the project’s success… without inviting so many suggestions that it’s impossible to deliver everything?
Case in point: Ten years ago I was in charge of an online tech community. The company I worked for hired custom developers to build the software platform, but the developers never talked to me. They interviewed the boss, two levels above me (who just so happened to be the person who signed the checks) even though she had never used this online community or any other. Needless to say, the community software they delivered was horrible, missing basic-to-me features.
Formally this process would be called “identifying the project stakeholders” or “master the requirements-gathering process” but that seems too corporate-speak. I’m looking for real-world examples of what works and what doesn’t, so I can write a genuinely useful article with practical guidelines.
Note that this is NOT about the questions to ask those stakeholders; that’s another discussion. Here I am writing merely (merely!) about making sure you are speaking to the people whose input you need.
My questions:
• How do you decide which people to ask for input? In what way do you find those people? How do you know when you have everyone you should?
• How do you decide whom NOT to invite? Where do you draw the line?
• Tell me about the manner in which you learned that lesson. (The hard way. Anecdotes are good.)
- gnat 8y agoWho's going to pay for the project? Who's going to have to use it? Who will have veto power over the project? Whose bonus depends on the software working? Whose bonus depends on the successful delivery of the project? What are you trying to accomplish? Where do you get the information you enter into the software? What do you do with the information you get out of the software? What changes to the software and how you work would make your life better? Can I sit with you for a day and observe you using the software in the course of your work day? Most people want faster horses. A rare few can imagine the automobile that makes the horse redundant. Look for the few and treasure them. At one startup I was at, we had a lot of teachers who were grateful for anything more than what they previously had. But we had one school where they were clearly setting the pace for everyone else: we loved that school, and we implemented the bits of their needs and ambitions that'd scale to everyone. That said, many projects are simply "do a better job of what the existing software does" and you aren't expected to invent the next Google in the course of the project. A lot of what you ask sits in the product management and UX spaces. Marty Kagan's book "Inspired" on product management is a classic. You might also get good ideas from "Take Charge Product Management" (Greg Geraci). I don't have good UX recommendations, but I'm sure other HN commenters will. You might also look to the customer development literature around lean startups. Steve Blank's "Four Steps to the Epiphany" and Eric Ries's classic "Lean Startup" would get you started in that direction. (And, of course, there are copious hits on Google for "customer development").
- ohjeez 8y agoI love this -- exactly what I hoped to hear. /me looks around for more...?