Initial Contact · Beginning (Wk 1-3) · Middle (MVP) · End (Handoff)

• Create an agenda - always always
• Ask questions – don’t assume
• Don’t make promises or decisions about the product during your meeting
• Find a balance with your nonprofit on how often to update them

The Initial Contact

More in-depth in Sample First Client Meeting Outline

TLDR:

• Set-up
• Email Contact
• Goals
• Sample First Client Meeting Outline

The Beginning (Weeks 1-3)

• Goals
  • Understand the nonprofit, what their organization does, their scaling, logistical and technological challenges that are relevant to the project
  • Understand the problem that what you end up building will solve
  • Be able to prioritize certain features depending on the nonprofit's needs
  • Define which features are foundational (technically), important, delighters
  • Communicate what we can realistically do in these three months as FT students
• Questions to Ask
  • “For <this problem> that we're talking about solving for you, how do you solve it today?”
  • “What are the use cases currently, and where do pain points occur?”
  • “How painful? How much time? Effort? Human Capital? Cost?
  • “How would your ideal solution look like?”
  • Find out your constraints
• Define the product (goals, features, prioritization)
  • Establish this as soon as possible, with feedback and input from the nonprofit
  • Set up multiple meetings in the first two weeks if needed
  • Create a PRD – we will talk more about this later
    • Create a list of features and a timeline based on their needs and wants. Include priorities and stretch goals.
      • You might want to send a version of this to your nonprofit so that they can understand how their needs are being translated into a product
      • Create user stories
      • “What is our vision for the user?” (non-technical terms) → then break down into technical features
  • It's important to also define metrics of success for your product.
    • While it may seem like the product solves the problems that the nonprofit outlined, only clear, measurable metrics prove the effectiveness and success of your product
    • This involves researching and understanding the problem, followed by different metrics to collect and measure
      • Be sure to ask the nonprofit for some current metrics for evaluation
  • PM should take the lead on this
• Mockups - create and share with your nonprofit within 2 weeks of the first meeting
  • Show these to your nonprofit as your finalize the PRD
  • Ask about branding requirements
  • Don’t put this off
    • Mockups are an important tool in guiding the project
    • Mockups help excite the team and nonprofit
• Midterm expectation for MVP
  • Discuss what features exactly are crucial to the project and will be demo-ed
  • If possible, have a physical midpoint meeting with your nonprofit
  • “Can we have a physical meeting with you? Can they come to UIUC?”

The Middle