• 21 Ways to Excel at Project Management

Creating an Implementation Plan

Question 17: Do you have a comprehensive implementation plan?

Good Practice: For large projects with a broad user base, the implementation stage can often be more complex and time-consuming than the development stage. The implementation stage can often benefit from being treated as a separate project. The following ideas are worth considering, especially for large projects introducing new business processes across multiple locations:

1. The implementation should be carried out by the people who will live and work with the new system; they will have a strong vested interest in getting it right.
2. Conduct a company survey for each site, meet the senior management, gain support, and fully understand the local working practices. This work will help ensure that the new process is fitted in seamlessly with the existing processes and that you discover any nasty surprises early.
3. An implementation event for each site should include a presentation by the chairperson to the rest of the company to show strong support from the organisation's top.
4. Comprehensive training for all users with different sessions if the process involves different user types, such as gatekeepers, project leaders and team members. You can never have enough training. It is better to split training into several short sessions, such as basic training, with two follow-up sessions at monthly intervals.
5. For multiple site implementations, use the idea of a showcase company where the conditions, such as user buy-in, expertise and motivation, are good. A successful implementation in the showcase company will then prove the system and process and act as a centre of expertise for the remaining sites.
6. For multiple company implementations, consider running several workshops for the implementation staff to allow them to learn from one another. A little competition between different companies also helps to spur the implementation. This approach helps ensure that problems are resolved quickly, and that other team members rapidly remove false problems. Consider special awards for implementation success. For example, an accreditation certificate when a company has successfully implemented the system and met some key (but simple) criteria in the business process. The certificates should be signed by the president or chairperson and presented to the local implementation team. Consider special awards for implementation success.
7. Consider special measures to track implementation progress, for example, gold, grey and blacklists. People do not like to be singled out as poor performers. For this approach to work, you must select a few simple key measures that cannot be challenged; be scrupulously fair and objective and reject all bribes.

Common Mistakes

• Failure to involve end users.
• Inadequate training.

During the closure stage, the project manager should answer questions 18 to 21.