Getting Client Acceptance

The client decides when the project is done. It is your job as the project manager to demonstrate that the deliverables (whether products or services) meet client specifications. For small projects, this acceptance can be very informal and ceremonial, or it can be very formal, involving extensive acceptance testing against the client's performance specifications.

Ceremonial Acceptance

Ceremonial acceptance is an informal acceptance by the client. It does not have an accompanying sign-off of completion or acceptance. It simply happens. The following two situations fall under the heading of ceremonial acceptance:

• The first involves deadline dates at which the client must accept the project as complete, whether or not it meets the specifications. For example, if the project is to plan and conduct a conference, the conference will happen whether or not the project work has been satisfactorily completed.
• The second involves a project deliverable requiring little or no checking to determine whether specifications have been met — for example, planning and taking a vacation. A colleague of mine shared the following example with me. The project involved recommending or not recommending the renewal of a hosted IT service. There really was no client to satisfy — just a decision to be made. The project ended on a ceremonial note following the filing of the recommendation.

Formal Acceptance

Formal acceptance occurs in projects for which you and the client have written an acceptance test procedure (ATP). In many cases, especially for projects that involve computer applications development, writing an ATP may be a joint effort of the client and appropriate members of the project team. It typically is done very early in the life of the project. This ATP requires that the project team demonstrate compliance with every feature in the client's performance specification. A checklist is used and requires a feature-by-feature sign-off based on performance tests. These tests are conducted jointly and administered by the client and appropriate members of the project team.