Set Up Support Systems

Having your support systems and processes in place before diving into the implementation process will save time and reduce confusion.

Most of the following steps are not challenging or time-consuming to set up, but having them in place will make it easier to do your work.

ESTABLISH A CONTINUOUS QUALITY IMPROVEMENT PROCESS

Everyone should remain focused on the end goal and continuously move forward. The team should always welcome comments and feedback. Document, approve, save and distribute all decisions, customisations, and alterations. Plan to regularly summarise reports of progress, activities, barriers, or questions and share them among team members.

DOCUMENT ESCALATION AND COMMUNICATION PROCESSES

Define and document your communication and escalation processes. Knowing who has the answers and authority for various implementation decision areas will save countless hours trying to track people down later in the process. Single, or limited points of communication with your vendor and other key decision makers will minimise confusion and conflicting answers.

IMPLEMENT A QUESTION/ANSWER MANAGEMENT SYSTEM

Your System Administrator will be spending considerable time ensuring that questions are directed toward the right people and answered. End users, team members, or your vendor can all produce questions and answers. Managing this can become quite challenging as the project grows. Unanswered questions can result in delays or mistakes. You might be able to handle this using spreadsheets and emails, but you might also want to consider implementing a slightly more sophisticated system. Some printers report success using the free version of Spiceworks Help Desk. Teamwork.com is another collaboration package worth considering.

USE A SEPARATE SYSTEM TO TEST YOUR PROGRESS

Think about who is going to test your progress and how they will do it. It’s a good idea to create and use a separate or duplicate system and database for testing. This makes it easy to save, test, and restore a non-critical function, or try new software, techniques, and features without impacting business operations or live data. This approach is essential for the initial implementation and is extremely valuable even after launch. Your team can use it for thoroughly testing feature sets and software releases before rolling them out into your live operation. The investment in such a testbed system is a wise one.