A meeting to introduce all parties. During this meeting there are certain key pieces of information to be gained to enable a plan to be drawn up that will be flexible enough to meet the desired goals whilst taking into account any constraints.
Key pieces of information will be timescales, phases or stages for the project to meet milestones, roles and responsibilities of key project members, risks, opportunities, new/existing data requirements and quality criteria. As a result of this meeting, Five Go Live will create a high level project structure document, called a Project Charter and project plan which highlights tasks and allocates resources based upon timescales, milestones and task dependencies.
This is carried out in the form of a series of workshops. The workshops are an open forum 2-way discussion where the key customer project staff discuss business processes and the consultant discusses functionality that would support the process or may suggest enhancements to the process which would add efficiency or business control. The result of the series of workshops is to give the customer participants a good overview of the system and the consultant adequate knowledge of the company to ensure that all business processes are discussed in detail and mapped to the software.
The results of the workshop will be documented by the consultant and submitted to the customer for their approval to ensure a level of understanding and agreement. This will form the baseline for the future phases.
The documented results of the workshops will be applied to the software and a small amount of data entered into the system. This will enable key customer project staff involved in the workshops to be given sufficient training to be in a position to verify that the business processes discussed are mirrored in the system set-up, and that information flows through the system in the desired manner. Any variations to those agreed within the workshops could be scoped and implemented during this phase.
The data requirements discussed during the Project Definition phase will then be implemented into a live version of the workshop/training system. Data will either be migrated from existing systems, or discussions will be held to ensure that the correct data is captured and entered into the system in the correct manner to ensure that the system is ready, and verified, for the Go Live.
Once the key staff have agreed the set-up of the system during the conference room pilot, training will then be given to other staff members, in groups of up to six people, to ensure that all staff are trained in the system as it has been designed and agreed.
Training will always be against the verified Conference Room Pilot system.
An organisation that has a large number of trainees can adopt a “train-the-trainer” approach to reduce implementation costs. This is where training is given to key customer staff, who are then responsible for ensuring that all other staff are trained to the same level.
This is usually carried out by the customer with members of Five Go Live present if required. It serves as both a training re-enforcer, a confidence builder for the customer and a final check that all processes within the system are consistent with the agreed business processes. At this stage all processes, data input and information output are checked to ensure that they match requirements. Also that technical issues, such as printing, backups, security have been resolved prior to live running.
Five Go Live !!
This usually follows shortly after system sign off and at the predetermined point that is the most suitable for the business. The companies staff start with the new system and a consultant is on site to ensure that any teething issues are resolved quickly allowing for the smoothest possible progression. After a period of running the project as a whole is re-visited to ensure that all key criteria have been met and that the system is operating as planned. The system is then signed off, and passed to support within Five Go Live Limited, who will assist with the ongoing maintenance of the system and resolve any difficulties experienced by the end user.
