RE: Re: Responsibility

--- Kent Beck <kent-hJ4WY/gWbur3XBa+dPFJ6Fr/[email protected]> wrote:
> More importantly, to me, is the implication that the more often they
> pay, the more often they will be willing to be involved (if e.g. payment
> entitles them to come to monthly maxi-planning meetings). People ask all
> the time, "How can I get the customers more involved?" "Charge more
> often," is a nice simple answer, if it works.

I'm struggling with this. I've read the HBR article to which you are referring,
but I am also thinking about a couple of experiences in which customers paid
large amounts of money up front, and invested massive amounts of time as a
result, even though there was no ongoing payment. In one case, even though we
demonstrated incompetence on a massive scale, the amount of the up-front
investment was sufficient to keep the customers involved, which kept the whole
thing going until we were able to show tangible progress.

I've used incremental payment as a means to help customers manage risk and tie
payment with value received. But I've also tried to get up-front committment to
significant amounts of money, and that committment seems to be more relevant to
how much time customers invest in the process, than the incremental payments.

This is probably a both/and: if you can get your customers to (provisionally)
commit to a large fee, AND you can tie payments to incremental delivery of
value, you will get maximal committment.

Oddly, my current company is now negotiating over a large (multi-million
dollar) investment from a customer, but that investment comes from the venture
arm of the customer, not the business arm. That is seeming to drive zero
willingness to participate in the development process.

Arien

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