Involving customers early

"...In iterative and agile development organizations, adaptive and client-driven planning is forefront. Client-driven development implies that the choice of features for the next iteration or release comes from the client. The focus is on whatever the client perceives as the highest business value. Still, many development organizations do not consult the client, but instead isolate the choice of features to the business analyst or product marketing teams. Prioritization of features is done by the product managers via their interpretations of the market trends and competition. Unclear and vague requirements are passed to the development teams, who typically have even less contact with the customer. They code the features to their perceptions (which are far removed from the customer's viewpoint). Clients often do not see the application until after code freeze or during a formal beta cycle, which is too late.

In this paper, I offer suggestions for how we can change this cycle in our organizations and get early and continuous customer involvement. I provide examples of common problem scenarios based on my personal experience in software development projects. And although these examples illustrate a software development lifecycle, the techniques I describe can be used by anyone responsible for verifying and gathering requirements."
Laura Rose, Quality Engineering Manager, IBM, Software Group
Involving customers early and often in a software development project