Part2: Key Measures of Success for System Implementation Project Management

System Implementation Project Management

6.After the trial phase, get back with your customers to demonstrate the products against the business requirements. Then have your customers make their final selection. At that point, be sure a technical specifications document is written that matches up against the business requirements. The purpose of the technical specification document is to demonstrate within the product, how business requirements will be met, what business requirements cannot be met or can only be met partially, and the IT requirements for the product. Be sure that, before beginning a major development phase, that you have gone back to your sponsors, customers and CIO or other representative IT parties for agreement on the specifications and agreement for moving forward. This phase will also require an updated project schedule outlining the full development schedule, resource requirements, and commitment from involved parties.


7.Be sure to do a pulse check with your customers and sponsors at many points throughout the development cycle. This will ensure your customers are not surprised by the end result or that you havent gone completely down a path that they did not want or that you developed something incorrectly. It is much better to catch these things while development is still going on your time-line will probably be impacted much less this way AND the perception of project success by customers and sponsors will be much higher this way. Ultimately, it is best not to have any such hang-ups during the development process. But, it is probably not realistic to expect that you wont have any. Thats the job of the project manager to work through such issues and still complete the project on time.

8.When the development phase is complete, it is important that you have documented not only how to use the product, but how it impacts that business processes. It will require discussion with customer group representatives about what the system will now do, and what the new process should look like. It is important to have this document and be in agreement with customer group representatives BEFORE any product rollout occurs.

System Implementation Project Management

If you do this, you can expect a much smoother training and rollout phase of the product than if you just try to throw the product out there. If you do not have a carefully planned training and rollout phase, all your work will go down the drain, and the project will most likely not be perceived as a great success.

9.During the rollout and training phase, it is extremely important to communicate what the users need to do if they need help with the product. What support for the product is available? A good project manager will already have this in place and be ready to put the support process into motion during the rollout and training phase. It is also important that you obtain agreement from the customer groups on the support process and that they think it will work for their group.

10.Lastly, be sure to follow-up with customer groups ensuring things are running smoothly and to see what problems or issues need to be corrected. Keep doing so until your customers are happy with the product.
Remember, there are no levels of success. Either it was a great success, or it wasnt.