Late but not delayed
When we began working with this client, they believed – based on a previous validation – that the project would take 3 months. Unfortunately, the validation didn’t match the requirements of the project. One TEAM’s expert recognized this early, so despite rescoping and pushing back the deadline, no delays to production were incurred.
“One TEAM Partners persevered through some really tough and unforeseen challenges and still got the job done for this critical, first system implementation at a site for the whole company”
Chief Quality Officer (Project Sponsor)
The client asked for:
- Rollout of Veeva Learning Management System (LMS) and Document Management System (DMS) modules within 3 months.
- Strong communication on the resource load model for these implementations, and the implementation timeline.
Step one: create awareness
The first step – and in this specific case, the most critical step – in One TEAM’s process is awareness. We spend time digging down into the details of what’s been done and planned before we got there. The senior leaders at this business believed that the LMS and DMS systems were ready to roll out to individual sites. But early on in our discovery we unearthed gaps; the original, validated system’s capabilities did not match the end users’ requirements. So, while still in discovery mode, we dug down into what was actually required – how long and how much effort it would take to close the gaps. We also made sure everyone, from leadership to the end user, understood what these discoveries meant.
Our process for gap scoping is now used by this organization across its other new system implementation projects.
Step two: build structure and establish rituals
To ensure the new timeline was carried out on time and budget, we implemented a dashboard of our design. Here everyone could track project progress, capture issues and risks in a RAID log, and add and track actions to an action item register. We find this level of structure critical – it keeps everyone updated via a single source of truth, and our clients agreed. They now use the dashboard across their rollouts at other sites too.
Rituals at this organization (the ways people were used to working) also needed attention. There was a specific way of working with the existing systems, and upon hearing that the system was changing people wanted to walk away. Our expert had to give as much time and attention to supporting new rituals as they did building out and implementing the new project plan.
Over the 9-month project, One TEAM’s expert output:
- A gap analysis which identified that the original plan was likely to unqualify end users and cause delays to production.
- A new project plan which struck a balance between necessary but resource-expensive updates to the system and changes to process which (with buy in) would deliver the desired result.
- A dashboard to track the new project plan’s progress, which meant everyone that needed visibility had it at all times.
- Team management and leadership communication, which ensured sponsorship of decisions across the spectrum of people involved.
- A PM questionnaire to support proper scoping, prioritization and team management long after we left.
Thoughts from this client:
“One TEAM has the ability to pull the team together even when the issues are piling up, and just taking them one at a time and working through that pile. Oh, and you’re fun to work with.”
Head of Quality Strategy and Planning (Work stream Lead)