Your Preferred Implementation Approach

In developing the overall delivery approach, it’s beneficial for vendors to understand your organization’s preferences for your implementation, as well as the size and make-up of your project team and anticipated system sustainment team.

Your Implementation Best Practices

If applicable, please provide any information about your organization’s IT project best practices, such as:

• System development methodology and life cycle documentation
• Project management and review practices, such as adherence to the
  Project Management Institute’s PMBOK processes
• Vendor requirements for corporate quality assurance certifications (such as ISO and/or ITIL)
  
  

Some Implementation Lessons Learned

Based on numerous POSSE implementations completed over the last 20 years, Computronix offers the following “lessons learned:”

• Phased projects, with multiple go-live events, will allow for a quicker initial system go-live, reduce overall staff stress, and allow for corrective/continuous improvement actions and changes in scope as the project unfolds. Single “big bang” implementations are stressful for everyone involved and may create a very long time period between project kick-off and the actual go-live event.
  
  
• Business process and business rule analysis (i.e., Fit/Gap Analysis), dialogue with the client, and the development of Gap Closure documentation may (depending on the vendor technology selected) represent the lion’s share of the system configuration time and effort. For example, physically keying in the final POSSE PLS or POSSE ABC system configuration adjustments using POSSE’s point-and-click enterprise application development tool is a straight-forward exercise that can be completed in a timely fashion once the client’s business processes and rules are well- understood and user interface designs are confirmed.
  
  
• For larger projects, an initial proof-of-concept or limited production release exercise may be a safer, lower-cost way to further evaluate POSSE technology. Such a prototype can even begin with a small services-only contract (no license purchase required) with a very limited system configuration scope, a short evaluation period, and options to continue or discontinue with POSSE based on the outcome of the prototype evaluation.
  
  
• It may be beneficial for larger projects to break the Analysis out as a separate, preliminary “Requirements Finalization” services-only contract. In several projects, we have completed the system requirements Analysis concurrent with writing a project Statement of Work. This stepping-stone approach reduces risk and associated contingency costing, firmly identifies true project deliverables and schedules, and eliminates any downstream surprises that would have to be addressed within a fixed project budget.
  
  
• With the advent of reliable, high-resolution video conferencing services, vendor travel and on-site expenses can be reduced significantly through the use of such virtual face-to-face services. We encourage clients to investigate such services provided by such companies as GoToMeeting or Zoom. Computronix itself uses the LifeSize Clearsea video conferencing service and can provide compatible client-side LifeSize video conferencing gear for a modest monthly fee as part of the project.
  
  

NEXT WEEK: Developing your Procurement Document.