It is impossible to capture all of the requirements without the assistance of the user community. They are also extremely busy and cherish the time the will be providing you. Many users have lost faith in IT watching their needs implemented incorrectly if at all. They are continually re-asked so many questions by different individuals that they tend to feel their time was wasted.

Here at SBDi we remind ourselves of five simple rules when meeting a user for the first time:

1. Schedule a meeting at the users convenience. Request that the meeting occur during the next week but respect their work schedule. For example, if they are traders, they probably do not want to talk to you during trading hours



2. When scheduling the meeting, keep it to only 1/2 hour (but leave yourself an hour and 1/2). Let them know when the 1/2 hour is up but that you are available to talk longer if they desire.



3. Let them know the specific topic you want to discuss (keep it tailored to their specialty). This way if they want to gather some information for you they can. This also means that you need to have your questions tailored to that specialized topic. This will require some research on our part.



4. Always thank them for their time. Every user is pressed for time. Be grateful that they shared that valuable resource.



5. Take notes and issue meeting minutes. Explain that the meeting minutes are a means to verify that you understood what they discussed. Let them know that they are welcomed to make whatever corrections and changes to the minutes within one week. This usually seals the trust. Users need to see that you were listening and that they were understood.

We have found that by following these simple rules, the second meeting will be longer and easier. Pat Ferdinandi