Question

Our new service manager starts work today! This is great news! As our business starts to expand, we must move our software project along.

You will need to talk to some of our employees to better understand the functionality and requirements for the proposed system. This is important because they are the key stakeholders of the system. You should make a list of employees who you will want to interview. I suggest that you learn the process for scheduling an appliance repair appointment and how the parts are obtained for those repair visits. Also, it is important to understand what reports that managers are hoping to extract from the new system. I find it is helpful to write down questions prior to your meetings so that you don't forget the topics that you want to cover.

My suggestion is to write at least 10 questions per person prior to the meeting. Make sure that you use open-ended questions (at least 7 questions) to get the employees talking. You should also use closed response and range of response questions. I find that each type of question can provide valuable information and are quite useful in requirements gathering.

Please send the questions to me for at least two of the interviews. I'd like to see what you are planning to discuss.

We have previously used both the Joint Application Development technique and the Rapid Application Development technique. However, many colleagues of mine swear by the agile technique. Each of these methodologies offer up some great advantages. Since we need to get this project done as quickly as possible, which of these techniques do you think we should use? I want to ensure that we've created software that will handle all of our users' requirements and that it is a robust system.

I almost forgot to mention that you'll want to also send a questionnaire out to the users of the proposed system. Did you want to send the questionnaire to all the users or do you want to do a stratified or systematic sample?

Please send your draft questionnaire to me before you distribute.

Answer 1

1. Are organizations prepared for this sudden transition?

2.What’s the first thing that leaders and individual managers can do to help their employees get ready?

3.What should people who aren’t accustomed to remote work do to get psychologically ready for it?

4.How should those check-ins happen? As a group? In one-on-ones? Via phone calls? Or video chats?

5.How does working from home affect psychological health? What can employers do to make sure that people are staying focused, committed, and happy?

6.What are the top three things that leaders can do to create a good remote culture?

7.How will these changes affect productivity?

8.If the social distancing policies go on for a while, how do you measure your employees’ productivity and eventually review them on that work?

9.Let’s talk about virtual meetings. What are some best practices, beyond the general advice to clarify your purpose, circulate an agenda, prepare people to be called on, and so forth?

10.And how do you facilitate highly complex or emotionally charged conversations when people aren’t face to face?