For CTOs & engineering
Understand the customer problem before you estimate the work.
Requests usually reach engineering as a solution somebody already agreed to. Helpful BoB keeps the customer quotes and the accounts they came from, so you can see the problem underneath before anyone talks about effort.
BoB does not estimate or write specifications. It gives you the evidence to ask better questions.
- 01
Read the actual words
Every comment keeps the customer's wording and the company it came from, so you are not estimating against a paraphrase.
- 02
Challenge the requested solution
The theme summary and the arguments against acting make it easy to ask whether the requested feature is the only answer.
- 03
Decide what needs investigating
You can see which parts of the problem are still unclear and say what needs a technical spike before any date is discussed.
Example
A live dashboard request that may not need live data.
Read how it works, or use our guide to writing a useful brief.
- Customer request
- “We need a live dashboard of outstanding orders.” Raised by a supervisor at Parkside Logistics.
- What the feedback shows
- Three comments describe disagreeing over which copy of a spreadsheet is current. One shift lead does want minute-by-minute updates during peak hours.
- What the team could do
- Consider a scheduled export instead of a live feed, after checking whether it carries the fields the customer named. The peak-hour case needs its own look.
Start with the request on your desk.
Add the customer comments behind it and read the problem before the estimate.