Collaboration Between the Customer and Suppliers in Agile Projects.

In Kruso, we most often work with agile development, where digital solutions are developed and delivered on an ongoing basis. Agile development means that the customer and the supplier work closely together to create a digital solution. This means that the solution will better hit the customer's goals from the start. But it also requires a higher degree of understanding and insight between customer and supplier than the classic plan-driven development methods such as the waterfall model.

A traditional challenge in digital projects may be that the customer primarily represents a business approach to digital development and not a technical one. Conversely, the supplier has the technical knowledge and knowledge of digital development processes, but not necessarily insight into the customer's business.

The problem with this may be that the customer and supplier do not understand each other well enough and the likelihood of misunderstandings increases. We at Kruso increasingly find it important to adapt the collaboration, both during development and in subsequent operations, to the individual customer. Customer-supplier organization is not a static size and must be adapted relative to the capabilities and knowledge of both parties.

There is a tendency for more and more of our customers to gain In-House technical skills. Previously, Kruso was the only one who knew how to code and roll out a website. Now we are increasingly experiencing a tendency for customers to possess some of the technical skills and competencies.

At the same time, we are increasingly working with the customer, at the business strategy level and have a close insight into the customer's return and strategy. In that light, understanding and adapting the collaborative organization to circumstances and competencies is more important than ever.

In Kruso, we have long worked with the paradigm that it must never be our organization that stands in the way of cooperation. We master the standard procedure and Governance fully just to be able to differ when it comes to it.

We often get the question "don't call a developer directly", as an alternative to having to go through the service desk, over a project manager and so on. The answer, of course, is "yes, you must do well". It is clear that you sit as a customer eg. With technical knowledge, bottlenecks must be removed so that the process is as short as possible.

The only condition is that we have decided on how and when. It depends on the situation and what competencies each party possesses. It is relevant here to relate actively to the need for mutual knowledge.

A good way to approach the issue is by simply covering competencies on both sides of the customer-supplier relationship. The model below illustrates a general way of assessing the need to acquire knowledge about the other party, customer or supplier. The model can be used as a guide in what competencies both parties should have.