Customer Acceptance checklist

This Customer Acceptance action plan is a guide through a set of procedures to ensure that project’s product perfectly
meets requirements declared by the customers, and therefore that project may finally be closed. Generally this Customer
Acceptance action plan embraces the following sections:
 Customer Acceptance (Management) Process;
 Components of Customer Acceptance Plan;
 Project Manager’s tasks on Customer Acceptance procedures;

Customer Acceptance (Management) Process:

 This Customer Acceptance process helps to meet one of the key objectives for every project: total customer
satisfaction, along with gaining a clear understanding of which requirements are totally vital, which ones add more
value, and what the potential trade-offs could be;
 With a help of determining Customer Acceptance measures you make an important step towards protecting your
company and your customers against partial (or full) customer dissatisfaction, as well as against ensuing business
conflicts and counterproductive disputes that may be generated by a loose (or uncertain) formulation of what your
clients expect to get to state their satisfaction;
In other words, this process works for you, as for organization, to give you backgrounds to prove to your customers
(and to make them formally agree) that what you have produced, meets their needs (it is what they formally
demanded, and therefore what you was obliged to deliver);
 First of all, the all-encompassing Customer Acceptance model should be elaborated, developed, and established to be
operated by the project managers. This is a complex methodology that embraces the following elements (processes):
o Parsing and negotiating on the Customer Acceptance criteria that are specific explanations of the customers’
needs, expectations and priorities to be satisfied, met and achieved, which make groundwork for their (customers’)
perception of the completed product;
o Discussing, agreeing (between the project customers and the project executers) and declaring the project’s
Customer Acceptance standards in the documents (of course, there can be a significant share of variable
conceptions to be kept continually clarified and developed during the entire flow of project execution, within a
scope of certain assumptions);
o Gradual composing the Customer Acceptance specification via deliberating an objective testing model that
comprises a list of tests based on appropriate testing scenarios, tools & methods. These tests will help on deciding
whether the actual results are up to declared standards;
o Creating Customer Acceptance Plan sample that may include the following components:
 Test Approach (overview, methods, tools, techniques, purposes, success & fail criteria);
 Test Period (what is an appropriate duration of testing phase);
 Setup of Test Environment (what is necessary for successful testing);
 Assumptions and Constraints;
 Testers (team of) and other participants (usually spectators and experts from the customers);
 Specific Tests and Test Scenarios (how actually the testing process will be carried out);
o Composing a Customer Acceptance document (aka checklist, template, or form) that is used for checking and
verifying the formal customer’s sign-off by every position validating the Project Acceptance (document lists
different items of the Acceptance Criteria to be gone through);
 Such a Customer Acceptance form is an instrument for gaining a documented and finally signed-off agreement from
your customers that your project deliverables (what you have produced) meet their exact requirements;
 Such a Customer Acceptance survey (also called the Customer Acceptance testing) should be performed at the end of
the project to make sure that the customers are totally satisfied with the project’s products, results and outcomes
(only once the customer has signed the Acceptance Form you have achieved a total customer satisfaction), and
therefore they don’t have any open claims, critical questions, or doubts to assert, or if some of predefined criterions
failed, then appropriate remedy actions should be negotiated and taken according to plan;
 Usually the Project Manager’s tasks on Customer Acceptance procedures are the following:
o Communication with the customers to agree on a format and scope of Customer Acceptance survey (testing), along
with facilitating and handling all questions, claims, and problems;
o Providing proactive feedback to consultants or experts assisting the customer on elaborating the Acceptance
Criteria;
o Making an agreement of acceptance criteria with the customers prior to actually commencing the Customer
Acceptance survey;
o Defining and mitigating the Customer Acceptance risk;
o Doing everything possible to reach the highest Customer Acceptance rate (100% of satisfaction, or even delivering
some extra-things);