Mark Gibson; PgMP, PMP, IBM certified Executive Project Manager

Education Strategies for Enterprise Software Implementations - Part 2

In the initial post of this series, we discussed the use of formal classroom training and its value in the education strategies for commercial software implementations.  In this second and final post, we will review the opportunities later in the project and the opportunities intrinsic to certain methodologies.

Formal Demonstration

After formal training, the requirements definition or gathering process can begin.  By using the formal training as the foundation, the customer team has a better understanding of the available options within the commercial package.  The project manager can reinforce the classroom training and supplement the requirements process by using the software to demonstrate and illustrate the functionality under discussion with the group.  This begins the transition from understanding the software in theory to understanding and collaborating with the implementation team on how best to configure the commercial software to the customer business.  The side benefit is increased acceptance of and understanding of the solution by the customer as they participate in and help to define the solution.

Prototyping

If a prototyping-based approach is chosen by the project manager, this affords good opportunities to integrate the training and development into a single activity.  Education on the screens and functionality will naturally occur when the end users define the solution operation.  The key is to use functional prototypes so the details of the screens are known vice demonstrating wire frames which leaves some doubt.  When implementing a commercial package, the focus is on the options available for configuration so the focus initially is more on the administration screens which govern the operation of the end user screens.  Once the available options are known and the mechanics of configuring, then the focus can shift to how the end user screens operate with any given configuration.  This process is iterative by nature so the knowledge is re-enforced of how to configure the commercial software to achieve a desired end user experience.

Testing

One of the final opportunities to educate the end users before the traditional pre-deployment training.  The initial testing phases including a traditional system test or user acceptance training afford chances to both flush out the details of the functionality but also reinforce what has been learned to date by exercising the features of the solution.  Besides the project team, this form of education can be expanded to other groups to increase the set of end users who are proficient in the solution.  This is especially important in a widely distributed set of sites or when the decision of acceptance is made by a group larger than the project team.  Similar to the prototyping approach, exercising the screens will naturally result in the accumulation of knowledge and proficiency on the solution.

Playground

Finally, the use of a training or playground environment is a traditional manner to educate customer on their emerging solution.  This environment is typically independent of any formal development or testing environment so the individuals looking for education are not impacted by the instability of the development and testing environments.  This also affords an environment for other traditional activities such as test planning.  When using a playground environment, it tends to be easier to provide some structure such as use cases or a test planning activity initially.  Once more proficiency is gained, the freedom to exercise the functionality in a more ad hoc fashion can be carefully managed.

The education opportunities defined in both part 1 and 2 of this post identify options for a project manager in either a custom development or commercial software implementation.  The use of any number of these suggestions is a project specific decision.

Other recent posts include:

PodCast: Interview on Resuscitating a Red Project Team

Anxious Customer: Options on what to do Part 1

Resuscitation of a Red Project Team

Have Multiple Releases: A Different Approach to Maintaining the Branches

Leadership Question: Does the PM work for the resources?

Education Strategies for Commercial Software Implementations - Part 1

During any enterprise commercial software implementation, the project team should take steps to ensure the customer can operate and maintain the implementation after deployment and rolling off the vendor resources.  There are several considerations when determining how to accomplish this body of work including the organizational structure of the customer resources, the current knowledge level of the staff, and the existence or non-existence of any post production support contracts.  Once these questions are answered, the next set of questions entail identifying the sets of unique groups to be educated and the individuals in each group.

A quick side note:  I typically use the term education vice training as training has the connotation of a formal set of activities including a classroom, a trainer, slides and a formalized agenda.  Although, this activity has a part in educating people, I believe this is the beginning of educating people and not the end.  The paragraphs below identify additional opportunities to increase the knowledge level of customer personnel to the desired level.

1. Formal Classroom Training

• Use Vendor training first

Most commercial software vendors provide formal classroom training which is a good base level for individuals new to the software.  This also provides comprehensive coverage across the entire breadth of the available functionality. It is optimally attained very early in the project and prior to any significant requirements analysis activity to afford the customer resources application level context for the requirements discussions or sprints.  The vendor team gets discussions in more depth and additional resources to collaborate on the optimal solution.

• Use project team to conduct informal training.  Let customer drive the agenda. product documentation can be guide

In some situations, formal classroom training may be impractical for any number of reasons.  In these cases, the project manager can consider using experienced project team members to review the available functionality.  These formal sessions should focus on configuration options available and how these options impact business processes.  Typically, the product documentation can be used to provide a sort of agenda for this less formal training so the project team is not burdened with developing training material.  Given the project team’s understanding of the customer environment, this type of training is typically more focused on the project team’s understanding of the customer needs.  There is a balance point here between briefing functionality which may not be used versus providing more depth of functionality which will definitely be used.

As with formal classroom, this enables the customer to see how their needs can be met and the background to be a true partner in deciding the optimal solution.  A positive side effect is the beginning of getting familiar with any administration screens and a customer more committed to the defined solution since it was determined in a collaborative fashion. A second positive side effect is more predictable detailed design sessions for those PMs running models with defined requirements periods.  By having a more educated customer, there is less need to review how the system works since this was covered in the training.  This discussions typically become focused on discussing the pros and cons of a small set of alternative solutions or quick agreement on options with few options.  In either case, the discussion timeframe is more predicable affording the PM greater schedule control.

Part 2 of the series is now available.