Customer engagement is a central pillar of agile delivery. Agile teams are not only focused on delivering quickly — they are focused on delivering the right things that truly matter to customers. Task 6, “Actively Engage Customers,” emphasizes the importance of close, ongoing collaboration with customers and users throughout the development lifecycle.
Engaging customers is more than gathering requirements once — it’s about developing a shared understanding of evolving needs, validating frequently, and co-creating value. It reinforces key Agile Manifesto principles like “customer collaboration over contract negotiation” and aligns closely with iterative development and early feedback loops.
The PMI Agile Practice Guide, particularly in Sections 5.4 and 5.6, stresses the need for stakeholder involvement in backlog prioritization, iteration reviews, and feedback cycles.
Enabler 1: Identify and Analyze Customer and Their Needs
Understanding the customer begins with clearly identifying who they are and what problems or goals they have. Agile teams often work with product owners, user advocates, or customer proxies, but it’s critical to connect directly with the real end users whenever possible.
Agile practitioners use several tools to explore and understand customer needs:
- Personas to define typical users and their goals
- Empathy maps to understand customer behaviors, feelings, and pain points
- Customer journey maps to visualize experiences and moments of friction
- Job-to-be-done (JTBD) interviews to clarify underlying needs
In a dynamic business environment, needs evolve quickly. Continuous engagement ensures that insights remain current and that the product adapts accordingly.
One of the most common pitfalls is assuming that the product owner alone holds all necessary customer knowledge. Agile encourages teams to explore beyond internal assumptions and invite customer voices into the discovery process.
Enabler 2: Validate That Iteration Deliverables Meet Acceptance Criteria
Customer engagement doesn’t end with understanding needs — it includes verifying that what is delivered actually solves the problem. Agile teams ensure this by collaborating with customers or their representatives to define clear, testable acceptance criteria and then reviewing deliverables against them during iteration reviews or demos.
Agile practices supporting this enabler include:
- Behavior-Driven Development (BDD), where scenarios are written in customer language
- Acceptance Test-Driven Development (ATDD) to define criteria before coding
- Definition of Done (DoD) and Definition of Ready (DoR) as shared quality baselines
- Sprint reviews for customer feedback on completed work
Validation happens continuously — not just at the end. Teams aim to reduce gaps between delivery and expectations through early involvement, clear criteria, and rapid inspection.
Lack of clarity in acceptance criteria leads to rework and misaligned expectations. Agile leaders should ensure customers and team members collaboratively shape what “done” looks like.
Enabler 3: Encourage Collaboration Between Customer and Team
Agile doesn’t treat customers as outsiders — it invites them into the process. Ongoing collaboration fosters mutual understanding, reduces feedback cycles, and ensures that evolving needs are surfaced quickly.
Collaboration mechanisms include:
- Co-located work or virtual drop-ins for real-time communication
- Regular customer reviews and roadmap discussions
- Prototyping and shared design tools for early visual feedback
- Joint backlog refinement sessions to prioritize and shape future work
Agile leaders create a culture of partnership, where customers are seen as collaborators, not reviewers. This may require educating stakeholders on the agile process and setting expectations for frequency and types of involvement.
One risk is involving the customer too late or too sporadically, which leads to delayed feedback and unvalidated assumptions. Regular, structured collaboration keeps development aligned with business and user priorities.
Summary Points
- Customer engagement is ongoing and central to agile success.
- Identifying the right customers and understanding their needs is foundational.
- Acceptance criteria should be co-created and used to validate deliverables frequently.
- Collaboration goes beyond formal reviews — it includes shared discovery, refinement, and feedback.
- Agile teams thrive when customers are embedded in the delivery process, not positioned outside it.
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