Before you start doing the work your customer has requested, first try to understand why they want you to do it.
This helps for 3 main reasons:
1) You get a chance to talk to your user and develop or nurture a relationship.
2) They feel happy that you understand what they want and care enough to ask them.
3) If something doesn’t work exactly the way the customer expects (which usually happens), you already know what their actual goal is so you can make appropriate adjustments.
Once a customer asked me to create a tool to help pharmacists track their conversations with oncology patients. Well, I talked directly to the user about exactly why she wanted this. It turned out there was as huge issue with patient compliance for these medications. That made me feel really good to work on a project that would aid in patient care. More importantly, my user is very happy with the tool and regularly sends me accolades.
What do you think? Have you seen this work? Have your customers ever said the following?
“Shut up and just do what I’m saying. Don’t worry about why I want this!”
healthcare i.t. worker 