There are certain tasks you must do here to launch a project into a state of momentum. When projects find momentum, the people working on that project find great satisfaction and some even have fun. You just know when that’s happening – it feels good. Many, though, have never been in this zone, so let’s get it together.

1. Establish psychological safety
2. Cleanse the software vendor’s database
3. Get your data ready before project kick-off
4. Bring design consultants into the project
5. Develop and test designs and extensions
6. Train users
7. Perform User Acceptance Training (UAT)
8. Go live

1. Establish psychological safety:
Google has done extensive research and application on project teams to discover this key success factor: teams are more successful when psychological safety has been established.

2. Cleanse the software vendor’s database:
The database the vendor will send you is going to burn dollars as you chase, replace, and re-work. Many more hiccups will occur. Therefore, I suggest you completely wipe away 95% of the referential data immediately. Start fresh.
The only projects I have ever seen succeed had wiped the database spot clean, save just a few tables and data columns. No, the database is not “pristine”, it is not “golden”, it is not “cleansed”, it is full of GIGO that will bite you very hard.

3. Get your data ready before project kick-off:
Referential data
Get your current data – referential data, not transactional data – in a state that is ready to load into the new system. It is no easy task. In many cases it takes months to get right. Plan on it.

Transaction data
Trade migration is no small feat. I have seen promises of this taking a month, but realistically it takes months and months, and then more months to get done. I have seen the best stumble, believing they could achieve migration faster than expected. And when asked if it was done, they said yes – I cringed knowing it wasn’t. We then end up keying or migrating more trades later. Eventually, if you are missing an entire class, or trade type, especially physical ones, design may not go as well as intended.

4. Bring design consultants into the project
Are we ready for the implementation consultants now?
If we have processed some transactions from customer-to-cash, and we did not get great big pop-ups or database crashes that destroyed all of the data, I think we are in a good place to bring on design consultants, internal and external.

5. Develop and test designs and extensions
Hold your breath. Projects have to keep moving, so expect the consultants to know there are issues, that some of the code extensions, especially, are not ready to go. They will have known long before the original due dates, because their bosses are telling you it will be on time, and that the targets to deliver the extensions were “aggressive.” Project pressures always exists. However, unrealistic expectations need to be discerned by the client. Too much pressure often brings more consultants, and more consultants bring more problems.

Therefore, if you know the user acceptance testing dates are at a risk, postpone them now.

6. Train users
This may seem counterintuitive. How can design take place if we don’t know how to use the system? At the beginning of every project, the users are eager to see the system and get it up and running. When it is up and running, it is nearly perfectly predictable: watch the exit doors. Vacations, business issues, seminars,….. all get in the way of initial user learning.

All of a sudden, more and more meetings and other events, and the day-to-day job becomes an issue. Said another way, human nature has just taken over and everyone is hoping that someone else will pick up the project slack, and that the consultants will do it all. It happens this way.

Therefore, when training is being done at project kick-off, another real awakening occurs on every project: it takes up to 6 weeks to just digest how to the system connects the dots.
This is why I put user training up, right next to user acceptance testing. No doubt, for any project to be successful, employees will need to start learning the system at project kick-off. Invariably, I see a few people who take a project, not thinking of the future, but realize after that it has propelled their career with promotions and pay raises. I know, I was in those shoes and I have watched others do it too!

7. Perform User Acceptance Testing (UAT)
Ah, now the client gets into the system and starts testing away. Testing being taking the client data from a specific time – from the current or last few months – creating test scenarios and running those into the system with the basic, easier transactions up to the more complex in each iteration. Preparing for this stage is rarely done well. Consultants are constantly bird-dogging the client to develop test cases for months in advance of the UAT.

8. Go live
I have seen some projects go live well, and I have seen some not work for another six months.
There is certainly going to be something that is not complete, and everyone knows it, but you have to move forward and go live. You can run a parallel or you can cutover and start moving forward.
I make no recommendation here. It is client specific to discern which approach will be acceptable and which is preferred. It depends on many factors, so use yo