Tuesday, June 2, 2009

Rollout planning essentials

Rollout planning essential steps to assure low cost and a successful technology deployment for your organization.

So you have to plan a nationwide rollout to Upgrade and /or replace the
 MPLS system
 Upgrade the CKT
 Pack and ship the old office
 Install Point-of-Sales (POS) systems
 Install security / CCTV systems
 Install new digital display system
 Phone systems
 or any other systems

in all or most of your company's locations?

This is the wholly grail of national project management. You need to make sure you have 100% success and at the end of the project , your system does not reward the guilty and punish the innocent.

You want to be around for next project.

INNOVA believes “ your success is our success “ , Then the more prepare you are , the more success you will have .

Following is a list of essentials that will make your task much easier and reduce the cost when developing your rollout or deployment plans:

Pre planning phase:

You need to make sure you have clear objectives and details, the more you prepare , the lower the cost and better results you will receive.
Write done a list of most important thing you need to do and what you heard on how to do this type of projects in your environment . Consult with your internal resources and then if you want you can call INNOVA
Then apply rule 80 -20 .

80 percent of your results and success will based on to 20 percent of items in your list.

But how do you know which are the top 20 tasks?

This simple process . Write done next to each task the following three classification.
1) Most do now
2) Can wait
3) Luxury item or nice to have

Forget about 2 and 3 ( there would be never enough time ) and list all the 1s.

Apply end dates to each item and just work based on this list until you are finished . In this list you will find:

 Project planning
 Detail requirement definition
 Involvement of correct stakeholders, as early as possible
 Communications, Communications, Communications
 Management oversight
 Change management process
 Budgeted planning

You need to start on:

Project summary and main objectives
The summary and objectives should contain the project requirements as well as an complete overview of the company's initiative including the operational and cot benefits from new technology, project time fame and budget as well as any possible obstacles and show stoppers that you might have identified.


Choose a vendor / partner
Among the Most important decision you make is your technology partners and specially the vendor that would install your technology nation wide . is the company has ;
 Recent track record of successful installation rollouts
 National resources , footprint and ability to deploy technicians nationwide
 High quality software project , service and quality assurance management program
 Size of liability insurance ( 10Million +) and work man compensation insurance
 Who is a single point of contact that will interface with your team
Give them opportunity to implement few sites before you commit them to the project.

Choose your project team
This includes the project team roles and responsibility that are expected both from your organization and the installation vendor selected to the rollout. Tie the project payments down to performance. Reward based on flawless implementation.

Develop a mock site
This is a site that you can used for R/D without impacting the operations. It should be as real as it gets .

Rollout a two-stage pilot sites
The 1st stage is two to three site across United States and 2nd stage should be at least 2 %to 3 % of the total site. This is to make sure you have the right process, flawless hardware and software and a good installation partner.

Co Develop rollout Document
It is advisable to first perform installation on Mock a pilot sites and then create a document that summarizes all standard and installation requirements that would be later implemented at all sites. The document and its sign off sheets will assure that all tasks are clearly identified and documented and delivery systems for materials are identified and in place.

Complete contract with the installation partner
Develop a list of all sites involved, contact names and phone numbers, building management names and number which will be used to pull Certificate of insurance ( keeping you out of harm ) . Describing possible locations such as mall, military base, airport, special access , black out dates and pricing as well as Terms and Conditions can now be established for the entire rollout. Experienced installation partner should be able to provide you with structure pricing and even unit pricing ( i.e. Chines menu ) in order for you to add or reduce cost . This also makes change to scope of work control easier to manage.

Co Develop a Statement of Work
Ask your installation partner to write down the SOW from their point of view and share it with your team . Then develop yours based on your internal resources , project needs.
The statement of work (SOW) should be as accurate as possible. It will involve efforts for creation from both parties. Once you have everyone inputs, then you have his or her buy off.

Implement Release Management
The focus of Release Management is the protection of the live environment and its services through the use of formal procedures and checks. release management main tasks are :
 Formal controls and processes to ensure requirements are met and safeguard the production environment
 Correct requirements identified?
 Can the release be deployed successfully?
 What did we just learn? (Post Implementation Reviews)
 Plays an important role in regulatory compliance and specially the security

Implement project transition team
Fact is you are running a business. Rollout should not impact your business daily operations, activities and support requirements. Transition team main tasks is to deploy the technology successfully, mange all testing and quality assurance and finally document the changes and pass them to operations with any flaws.

Implement "transitional help desk" processes
These processes are established in order to take ownership of the rollout and cut over before it is handed to company's operation's help desk.

Issues such as go backs , site issues , "check in / check out" technicians, problem determination, problem resolution and escalation of issues is among the task your " transitional help desk" should be able to respond ,document and control

Escalation plan and process
An escalation plan process need also be developed. The document includes the list of contacts with higher level authority, which can assist in the resolution of issues.

Develop a project rolls and responsibility document
This document is an addendum to SOW . It should clearly describes installation partner roles and responsibilities for all resources involved, determines goals and milestones, and identifies in detail all requirements including what does it constitute completed projects , billing based on deliverables and project sites sign off, test results , picture before and after and communication.

Co develop a site installation schedule
The rollout schedule needs to be developing with the installation partner(s) input to take advantage of their assets and experience. They should have a system in place that determines the most cost effective ways to implement the rollout. This will reduce project over cost .

Complete a QA and feedback documentation
A reliable partner will have a feedback documentation that is used to improve the quality assurance. An established installation partner will have a detail and mature quality assurance process in place, designed to assure that the installs are on track and resolutions of any issues are timely. They should offer " live " project reporting and QA via WEB
Change management
Due to nature of the national project , location, weather , mother nature , change within the organization and many , many factors , there would be changes. Not all changes will constituted to change in pricing and cost ( up or down ) but some will . You should assign a internal change manager based on set of standardized processes and tools used to handle change requests in order to support the business while managing risks.

Quality is never an accident. It is always the result of high intention, sincere efforts, intelligent direction and skillful execution

David Khorram

Innova Global Technology Inc.

dkhorram@innovaglobal.com

http://www.innovaglobal.com/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7qGQed8XVsY