It’s important to set expectations. Everyone has some experience with setting expectations right? Or maybe someone has set expectations for you.

Setting expectations is important and often forgotten about. Expectations help set the foundation for the future. They need to be realistic and achievable. Written down and not spoken.

I take setting expectation in my work very seriously as it could be the difference between success and failure. I like to set expectations so that the enterprise or customer is aware of my intentions, problems or successes. Most importantly, it helps shape their expectations. There are some steps that I like to take before setting expectations however.

For instance, all of my projects start with defining the problem. Define the problem that your customer or enterprise has come to you for resolution for.

After defining a problem, get..

1.) The user requirement

2.) The business requirements

3.) Set expectations

This approach has helped me greatly. I’m sure many of you have your own way of going about the same thing. If your way doesn’t have setting expectations in it, I urge you to try adding it as part of your procedure and see how things work out.

I wanted to share a before and after picture of a build I had worked on for the better part of a year. I faced many hurdles during this project but had always set expectations for my customer. It led to great success in the end.

Here is one of their MDFs.

Mike