10 factors 9: deliverables

9.    Deliverables. As each deliverable is complete, hand it formally over to your customer. Ask them to verify acceptance to make sure it meets their expectations. Only then can you consider each deliverable as 100% complete.

The 'deliverable' cycle starts with their identifcation in a work breakdown structure and the setting of their performance requirements, tradeoff criteria and acceptance rules. Without these, no one knows when they have a 'deliverable'.

The performance requirements are critical to understanding the job the deliverable will be required to perform. They have to be stated unambiguously, objectively and in a testable manner.

As far as scheduling goes,  a deliverable is not delivered until it is accepted. Thus, the deliverable cycle has to  milestone the delivery, following project-internal acceptance testing against the stated and agreed criteria, then identify customer acceptance testing, which might take some time. If you cannot point to the event of handing over a completed deliverable for acceptance testing, then it becomes very hard to point to the customer acceptance activities as being the source of delay.