Life-Cycle Technologies, Inc.
Assessing Expectations Checklist

At the beginning of each project, the consulting team needs to assess the expectations of our client to ensure a mutually beneficial outcome for both us and the client. As the checklist of questions below outlines, client expectations can be broad and varying. Having the answers to most (if not all) of these questions before having serious "project scope" discussions with LCT, can save everyone a lot of time.  To complete this form you can either print it out and then fax it to us or you download it using the button located at the bottom of this page.

Client Information:

1. What is your company name, address, phone #, fax #, etc.?

2. What is your company’s function?

3. How long has your company been in business?

4. How many employees total?

5. How many branches/locations?

6. Do you have an IS/DP staff? What is the staff size per supported platform?

Business Issues:

1. Please give a brief explanation of the history and future of what you are trying to accomplish.

2. What are the business issues/needs involved?

3. What will happen if each issue/need is not met?

4. What will happen if each issue/need is met?

5. What do you anticipate Life-Cycle Technology’s role to be in solving these issues?

6. Is this project directly linked to your company’s "critical path"?

7. What will happen if you don’t undertake this project?

Commitment:

1. Who are the people in authority that must approve this project?

2. Do they perceive a strong need? What is their commitment level?

3. Who are the users?

4. Do they perceive a need? What is their commitment level?

5. Has a budget already been approved for this project?

6. What are the budget constraints?

7. Who must approve the budget?

8. What things, if any, would stop you from going ahead with this project?

Deliverables:

1. What are the expected deliverables?

2. What type of documentation will you need? User doc, technical doc, on-line help, Other?

3. Do you expect us to transfer knowledge and skills? User training, Technical training?

4. What criteria will be used to measure our success in providing deliverables which meet your expectations?

5. What, if anything, might prevent you from using the deliverables?

Timing:

1. When would you like to kickoff this project?

2. When do you wish to complete this project?

3. When can a decision be made to proceed in order to deliver in this time frame?

4. Does your organization have other dependencies on this completion objective?

5. What variables, if any, might effect our being able to meet this timing target?

6. How much client management time can we use?

7. How much user time can we use?

8. What are the consequences of being late with delivery?

9. What are the benefits of being early?

10. How long will the new system be expected to operate before it is replaced or upgraded?

Information Flow - Current System:

1. How does information get into the system? (Paper, Modem, Manual Entry, Transfer from other system, Scanned, etc.)

2. What output is generated by the system? (reports - screen/paper, mail merge files, e-mail, spreadsheets, graphs, ASCII files, transfers to other systems, faxes, etc.)

3. Please sketch a simple diagram of how information enters the system, each major junction in the system, and how information output the system.

Information Flow - New System:

1. How does information get into the system? (Paper, Modem, Manual Entry, Transfer from other system, Scanned, etc.)

2. What output is generated by the system? (reports - screen/paper, mail merge files, e-mail, spreadsheets, graphs, ASCII files, transfers to other systems, faxes, etc.)

3. Please sketch a simple diagram of how information enters the system, each major junction in the system, and how information is output the system.

Platforms:

1. What is your current and planned Hardware configuration? Please give total numbers of servers and workstations, Highest end, lowest end, and average configurations including make, model, speed, memory, video, storage, etc. for both servers and workstations

2. What are your current and planned Operating System(s)?

3. What is your current and planned Network configuration?

   1. Please specify protocols used.

   2. Please include WAN, LAN, Remote Dial-in, Intranet, Internet mainframe/mini communications, etc.

   3. Please specify vendor and version of networking software.

   4. Will the information need to flow between platforms? How will this be accomplished?

Data Levels:

1. How much information is currently maintained?

2. What is the size of each record?

3. What is the growth rate (number of new records) per month?

4. How much space is currently available? How much will be made available?

Conversion:

1. Will conversion of existing information be necessary?

2. How much data?

3. Where is the data now?

4. What format is the data in now?

5. Will any existing system be maintained?

6. Will information need to continue to flow into these systems?

7. Will information need to feed from these systems into the new system?

Testing:

1. Who will perform user acceptance testing?

2. Where will the test data come from? Who will be responsible for providing data?

3. How much test data can we get?

4. How long will it take to get the test data once the project starts?

5. Who will decide if testing was successful?

6. What will constitute a successful test?

Security:

1. Is system security needed?

2. How detailed should it be?

3. Please define security levels.

4. Who controls the system security?

5. Is security setup on the system as a whole, each application, each application module, or by each activity (adding, saving, deleting, sensitive data access, etc.)?

Reports:

1. Will ad-hoc reports need to be written by the users? Please explain.

2. Will fixed reports need to be provided with the system?

   1. How many fixed reports?

   2. Will fixed reports need to have user supplied parameters before execution?

Installation/Rollout:

1. Who will perform the installation?

2. What is the rollout plan?

3. What is the time schedule?

4. How will updates be rolled out? By whom?

Support:

1. Who will provide user support?

2. Who will provide technical support?

3. How will user and technical support be provided?

4. What level of user and technical support will be provided?