Some people ask us to help them design a new product. They ask us to design things that have not been invented. Solve problems that have not been solved. This can make it really hard to answer the last question in every onboarding conversation: “what do you think the budget will be?”
We sell value1. In order to know what that value is, we need to know what we are valuing. If all you have is a vague schematic idea of what you want to build, this can be a challenge. Even if you have a crystal clear idea, the execution is always more daunting than you think.
Estimating whether a project should be €10.000,00 or €100.000,00 can obviously make a big difference for both parties in every possible way. In order to make a better estimate, you need to turn up the volume of your microscope a bit.
That is why we do scoping workshops with some of our customers. And it works pretty well – even though it is no Silver Bullet™. Together with the customer, we get a better understanding of what it is we will design and build. The customer gets valuable (I did say we deliver value) insight in the form of user stories or a backlog. And we can define the scope of the project much clearer. That is a win-win situation.
This probably does not work for blue-sky thinking research type projects. In that case, all you need is a blue-sky research budget to get the job done. In all other cases, we can define the scope together!