1. 'Presentation on the process of
implementation with the key
milestones and success factors
for handing into service.'

2. Before we start eating the
elephant
• Agreeing a timeline & requirements for sign-
off
• Customer preparation
• Contracts
• Service Level Agreements
• Project plan
• Sign-off

3. Key Milestones
•Blueprint
•Configuration
•Data load
•Process documentation
•UAT(/training)
•Parallel run
•Go-live, final sign-off & hand over
•Post go-live assessment

4. Blueprint
• Ascertaining what the customer wants:
– What’s in scope?
– What is the brief?
– What is driving the change
• Documenting the requirements:
– The importance of clarity
– Sign-off
– Written in stone?

5. Configuration
• From blueprint to technical spec
• The importance of continued communication
• Regular updates
• Keeping the customer involved
• Iteration
• Sign-off

6. Data Load
• Putting meat on the bones:
– But first: data cleanse
– Mass upload - tools
– Manual upload - people
– Checking & reconciliation
– Ask the experts (involve the customer)
– Sign-off

7. Process Documentation
• A collaboration between customer & service
provider
• Not strictly here in the sequence of events,
but ideally no later
• Process documentation can double as/provide
a basis for test scripts & training documents
• Sign-off

8. UAT(/training)
• The importance of end users as testers
– Dependent on split of duties post go-live
• Chicken & egg
– Training end users on a system not yet tested &
signed-off has its own inherent problems, but
necessary if the end users are to perform the testing
• Managing the process
• Record keeping (e.g. DR, transport protocol)
• Developers on hand
• Sign-off
• Risk: derailing the timeline. A pragmatic solution

9. Parallel Run
• How many is enough?
• Establishing sign-off requirements up-front
– What is an agreed variance to sign-off?
– Accountable differences
– Rounding differences
• Record keeping
• Sign-off

10. Go-live, final sign-off & hand over
• If all previous stages have been signed off,
which in theory they have been to have
reached this stage, then this should be
straightforward
• It is desirable that if there were any earlier
caveats to sign-offs they will have been tied
up by this point
• An important stage symbolically as well as for
morale and comms

11. Post go-live assessment
• A success?
• Bottom line: have we come in on budget & on time?
• The importance of customer feedback
• Our own reflections
• Lessons learned for the future
• What went well?
• What could have gone better?
• Sharing
– don’t reinvent the wheel
– consistency of approach
– branding