In every iteration towards the implementation of a cloud use case, it is important to define the goals to achieve and to commit them with the customer. Of course there a lot of option to document the commitment. We just want to give some samples and ideas around a effective commitment with the customer. And we have of course in mind that the commitments might differ depending on the engagement delivered.
It is always a good exercise to define not only any goals but also the current state. This is the starting point of whatever engagement will be delivered. So it is important to have a clear picture of what is the current state.
Try to define the future state in a simple manner. Maybe use a "persona" based approach and define the future state as a user story from the viewpoint of your persona.
As a Administrator I want the marketing website to scale out automatically based on defined rules, so that the visitors of the website have always a good performance.
The product database is available for all our website instances around the world with a minimum of latency.
Both examples show a desired future state. Maybe it would be even better if we thing of defining objectives in a SMART way.
Just to remember, what means SMART goals:
S -> Specific,
M -> Measurable,
A -> Achievable,
R -> Realistic and
T -> Time-bound
Referring back to the both examples given above - the M and the T are missing. So a time frame until the product database will be available world wide or the website will have the capability to automatically scale, should be defined. The latency and the meaning of "good" performance are also missing to have a smart goal. But in the end, it is only important to commit the objectives with the customer and define the success criteria for each objective.
In the description of the future state include a statement about the desired benefit of the engagement.
If you think about the examples above it could be a statement like:
- We would like to reduce the operational effort for our IT stuff
or
- To have more satisfied website visitors, We would like to have always an updated product catalog on our website no matter where visitor has is geographical origin.
This benefits are mostly not given by the IT of the customer - they are coming from the business departments.
In most cases the engagements have no great risks. to talk about the potential of some unexpected situations. Often it is a good practice to just document, e.g. that the availability of some specific team members is a prerequisite to achieve the objectives, instead of talking about it after the delivery had started.
A collection of possible Slides to document the commitment you find in this presentation.