It becomes important for us as business practitioners to understand the “need behind the need” – even before the need is clear <smiles> well complex but true and possible. Often observed clients do not actually know why they want solutions or even why they want to outsource at most instances. It becomes important for us as consultants to act as advisors to clients to help them understand the “why” before the “what”.
The bigger question how we do this? How do we go beyond the one line brief provided by the client to help clearly articulate the requirements before we jump into design or development?
As a precursor the following activities help lay foundations of solutioning:
Understand competitive landscape – Who are you competing against? Is it a creative agency or a full service outsourcing organization? Knowing domain specific industry benchmarks helps understand why the client is starting a project/ building a product or a service at this stage of the market.
Who is the sponsor – Often this is the most difficult one to get, IT and business dynamics in most organizations do not work in tandem. An observed trend: While IT is more often aiming towards getting products out at the lowest cost, business is on the other hand more quality cautious.
Precedence in execution – Knowing as an organization we have something to showcase as a case study is not desirable anymore, clients expect precedence as much with evidence in today’s world. If we have one good, else it will take a multiplier worth of efforts to partner network or to drive efforts on capability showcase further to prove credentials.
“Discover the need behind the need, ‘cause that is what we need to address”
UXcorner 
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