Do you have an engagement lifecycle?

Having a documented process for managing engagements provides clients with a consistent experience. It also helps to get new employees up to speed quickly, and provides a reference to existing employees to ensure no steps are accidentally missed.

An engagement lifecycle overlaps with a sales pipeline, and maps to the 8 Steps to Scrum.

1. Initial Phone Call

   • The client has made contact but no initial meeting has yet been made

2. Initial Meeting - Booked

   • Sales team has arranged an initial meeting and it's booked in.
   • The Initial Meeting is a non-billed meeting that maps to the Initial Meeting described in the 8 Steps to Scrum. It is attended by a Sales person and ideally a Solution Architect.

3. Follow Up Meeting - Booked

   • In some cases, more than one initial meeting may be required before work or speccing commences.

4. Specification Review Proposal - Waiting for Approval

   • After the Initial Meeting, if the work requires it, a Specification Review is proposed.

5. Specification Review - Booked

   • The Specification Review meeting has been approved and booked in.
   • The Specification Review is a billed meeting with the customer to review existing specifications, understand specific goals, risks and relevant technologies appropriate for the solution, and create the initial backlog.
   • During the Specification Review, the Solution Architect prepares a document, presentation, or video outlining the results of the Specification Review, as per Spec - Do you effectively present the outcomes at the "Specification Review presentation"?.

6. Project Proposal - Waiting for Approval

   • After the Specification Review, the client is given a proposal for a chunk of work. Once this is approved, the Sales Team closes the opportunity as 'won'.
   • Proposal is sent to the client including financials and the result of the Specification Review.

7. Project Execution

   • The Scrum process runs, starting with the first Sprint forecast email, as per Do you create a Sprint Forecast? (aka The functionality that will be developed during the Sprint)

8. Project Closure

   • Project is completed, any handover or other transition that has been defined is completed with the client.
   • Just like a Sprint Retrospective is held at the end of each Sprint, a Project Retrospective is held to learn from the project that has just completed.