Writing and Maintaining Client Acceptance Procedures

The worst time to negotiate the completion of a project is at its eleventh hour. If you wait until then, you are at the mercy of the client. A company that I worked for developed Internet and intranet solutions for their clients using fixed bid contracts. The company was very sloppy about scope change control and did not formally establish project completion criteria. As a result, the company was always facing last minute changes from the client. Profit margins were seriously eroded as a result. In fact, they had trapped themselves on more than one occasion and ended up spending more to complete projects than they received from their clients.

The message is clear. The process of writing and maintaining client acceptance test procedures begins during requirements gathering, is documented during project planning, is maintained during project execution, and is applied as the only criteria for moving to the project Closing Phase.