Phases of A Successful Implementation: #5 Organizational Readiness
#5 Organization Readiness
Description
During this phase of the project, we begin to get the entire organization involved. Communication begins with meetings, documentation, postings, training classes, etc. This is where the picture starts to take shape, questions that people have had for months start to get answered and potentially things you have never considered will be presented.
Key Activities
These are the activities individuals involved in the project should be expected to do during this phase.
- Training
- Cutover plan
- Communication plan
Inputs and Outputs of the Phase
Inputs will be what information will be used in this phase and the Outputs are results expected during this phase.
Input: Designed system
Output: System ready for go-live
Output: Business process procedures
Output: Cutover plan
Resources
These are the roles that should be expected to be involved during this phase. They should always be a part of the communication plan, but will be actively involved in this phase.
Project team
Business Process Owner
Subject Matter Experts
Technical Resources
All system users
Common Problems during this Phase
- Not Enough Time to Train: By the time you get to this phase, everyone has one thing in sight. The go-live date. At this point each member of the team is finishing up their to-do list, racing to resolve open issues or address new things that have come up and coordinating the changes required during your cutover plan. This phase typically does not get the timeline that it deserves. This is because your testing phase gets pushed back so everything can be tested before moving on and your go-live date is the same, which makes this phase smaller in most cases. This means all the training you have been ramping up for and planned, you have less time to do it in. All the while, the people you are training still have their day-to-day jobs. Most have not seen SAP before, so they need time to practice. Getting the all the training scheduled, completed and practice work in is usually an aggressive feat. The most successful clients realize this hurdle and the importance of making their employees comfortable and they plan for this. Some will bring in resources to backfill key users temporarily, approve overtime, schedule weekend work, etc. Keep in mind if you don’t plan to properly train your users and have them figure it out at go-live, expect not only impact to productivity but also frustrated end users. If you want to avoid this, plan for delays, take training seriously and shift your schedule if your workload requires it. You will benefit in the end with this.
- Lack of Feedback from Business: As mentioned before, this phase is the first time most of your business will be exposed to SAP. Therefore, they are going to one of two things, ask many questions or not say much at all. My experience is most don’t say much and assume they will figure it out later with someone’s help. This makes it difficult for the project to understand if the business gets it and are ready. My suggestion to you regardless of whether you get feedback or not is to create tests for each piece of content that you are training. This will allow you to understand if your users have retained the content or if you need to spend more time with them. Also consider taking surveys to force feedback where it is critical.
Organizational Readiness can be considered critical to your go-live success. The project team is usually worn down at this point, so they are looking for a break. If you don’t keep your same cadence during this phase of tracking the project, some clients experience productivity dropping. My advice to you is to take this phase very seriously, realistically plan training and resources and find create ways to make sure you get not only management but end users feedback about everything sooner rather than later. The more info you have now will only help you later.
All the Best for your Project,
Stephanie
ABOUT
SL Smith & Associates became a firm in late 2014. It was a result of the owner, Stephanie Smith breaking out from working for SAP consulting firms and doing it on her own, convinced that the cookie cutter consulting the same way for every one was so frustrating and not getting the job done.
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