Implementing Your Technology Solution: A Brief Methodology

Frequently when investing in a technology solution, people do not have a methodology for its implementation. For a technology solution to work at its best, an organized and comprehensive approach to implementation is needed. Otherwise there will be delays, interface problems, user resistance, and other issues.

Planning:  The first step in implementation is to identify your implementation team. One person from your firm should be the implementation leader. This should be a person who will actually read the manuals and take responsibility for the success of the solution. If this person and your leadership are completely comfortable with the in-house skills available for installation, roll-out, training, and maintenance, you can move ahead. If not, you need to identify technical support that will help you through this process. At this point, vendor resources may be valuable if the vendor provides these kinds of services and if your implementation leader has the skills to monitor the vendor. Otherwise you may need additional support. For many technology solutions, your regular IT support will frequently be sufficient. For specialized solutions, regular IT support may not have the attendant skills and knowledge. Before committing to using your regular IT support, ask them to review the technology solution with you to ensure they have the appropriate skills and knowledge. Finally, your implementation leader should identify other internal resources who can or should help with some phase of the implementation process.

Now it is time to identify your users more precisely. Many programs have permission levels that limit access to sensitive information and/or limit the operational capabilities (which can prevent accidental problems). The less need or ability a user has, the more their permissions should be limited. The different permission levels can be used to determine different training regimens.

Once you have identified your implementation team and your user levels, you are ready to develop a time and action plan for installation, training, and roll-out. The plan should be designed to achieve minimal disruption to normal activities. Before beginning implementation, be sure training materials will be ready and available and that support will be in place.

Installation: Try to plan installation so it does not disrupt normal activity. If you need to disrupt normal activity, make sure everyone affected understands what the disruption will be, why it is necessary, and how long it will last. Try to be as detailed in your plan as possible and leave time for problems that may arise in the process of installation.

Training:  Training can be problematic. People have many different learning styles. Many are resistant to training, either because of the time involved or because of insecurity about learning new technologies. Hopefully your technology selection and implementation process has helped get buy-in and a commitment to making the new technology work. Many people will learn well in a group class. Others may need on-on-one attention. Allow your users to self-assess whether they need individual help or not. Following training sessions, encourage your users to use available tutorials for additional instruction and practice. If at all possible, try to follow up with each user daily until they have stopped having issues. It is important also to have on-line reference support available including user manuals, links to user groups and other on-line support, and, if possible, some kind of wiki-style support.

Roll-out:  When installation and training are complete, it is time to start actually using your technology solution. Sometimes incremental roll-out is better and sometimes full-tilt boogie is the way to go. However you do it, have a detailed plan of who starts doing what when and be sure to monitor the roll-out closely for the first few weeks.

Maintenance:  Be sure your users know how to get support and where. They should understand the escalation process within your firm and with the manufacturer. Everyone should know what kind of outside support is available, what the cost might be, and when it is appropriate to use it. Frequently outside support is only accessed through a small group of users. This allows more sophisticated users to help solve problems before incurring out of pocket costs. Documentation materials should be checked to see if there is routine maintenance required. If so, responsibility for it should be assigned and scheduled. An administrator should be assigned to monitor support needs and upgrades.