23-04-08 Unit 8 1
IT ManagementUnit 8- Systems Implementation
Management (Chpt 6 - 9)• Understand the role of standards & reviews
• Describe the role of communication in the project
• Describe the “roll-out” process
• Understand the role of user feedback
• Describe scheduling
• Determine the requirements for a command and control centre
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IT Management
SDLC CONTROLS Planning
Analysis/Design
Building
Testing
Organization, Stakeholders, Charter
Project Mgmt, Tools, methodology, services
Committees, Tools, Project, Development, Dbase, processing, & security controls
Testing phases & methods
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IT Management
SDLC CONTROLS Implementation Post-Implementation
Roll-out controls Backup-recovery,
ITIL Service & support controls, turnover, review, report, document
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IT Management
Project Standards:
• Standards: set standards, enforce standards, introduce changes gradually, get input from project team.
• Standards in deliverables:• design specifications• code comments• systems documentation• test documentation• user documentation• version control• change requests• procedure guide maintenance• status reports• time tracking & measurements.
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IT Management
Communications: • Share information: organize meetings
include agenda items. • Solicit team evaluation on change
requests. • Progress review with user:
• explain options on overruns• avoid: cannon fodder (add more
staff), body snatching (shifting responsibilities), death march (mandatory overtime).
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IT Management
Communications (continued): Hold reviews: • code: peer reviews and project team
presentations• test plans: peer reviews and project
team presentations• documentation and training• project dependencies• ongoing tool assessments/issues• standards and procedures• consultant products
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IT Management
Conflicts: • Resource balancing: review status reports
for imbalances of work; redistribute tasks • Health and environment: watch for
workplace clutter, and exhaustion or stress in your team
• Human behaviour: cultural
misunderstandings, troublemakers, substance abuse, tempers, free-lancing, etc.
23-04-08 Unit 8 8
IT Management
Your Turn (small groups): 5 minutes You are a project manager working on the Urgent
Care Health Clinic project in the consulting division at IBM that specializes in developing new systems for the Health Industry.
• What type of conflicts are likely to happen in New Century Health Clinic project? How will you manage these?
23-04-08 Unit 8 9
IT Management
Plan for Education and Support: User Documentation Objective: how to
perform certain tasks
• Know the level of your users• Electronic and paper based• Context sensitive and general help files• Requires technical writer – you won’t
always get one
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IT Management
Plan for Education and Support (cont): Training:
• Make up fictional characters to use your product: employees, customers, suppliers
• Script out how each character interacts with your product to get his/her job done
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IT Management
Plan for Education and Support (cont): Training:
• Demos: Go through all system functionality
• Classroom: Users get hands-on training
• Tutorials: Scripts & step-by-step instructions to execute
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IT ManagementUser Training
• Make training mandatory• Improves chance of success
• Reduces help desk calls
• Training considerations:• Various type of users – security, role,
location
• Just-in-time training
• Plan for training after implementation
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IT Management
System “Roll-out”:
Expectations: Perfection!• Staff are trained
• Systems is complete and bug free
• Equipment is installed
Reality: Murphy’s Law • Laws change – business rules change
• Hardware doesn’t arrive on time
• Your best programmer quit a week ago!
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IT Management
The “Roll-out”
Promote your application• Get your users on side and feeling positive
about the new system
• Acknowledge your users’ efforts, project team’s efforts
• Posters, trinkets, handouts, e-mail announcement, etc
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IT ManagementProduction Scheduling:Types of Scheduling:
• Ad hoc jobs - submitted by authorized users; run only once. e.g. reports, job re-runs, etc.
• Scheduled jobs - always run at a certain day and time; initially setup when system is installed; system request submitted for changes; changes approved by management; changes done by production support group. e.g. update the G/L; run the payroll cheques, etc
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IT Management
Production Scheduling:The Need Today:
• Application system implementations – new & releases
• Backups/restores• Storage management: compression/de-
fragmentation• Batch runs/printing: e.g., customer billing runs,
cheque runs, input slip validations (visa), renewal notices;
• Master file updates/batch transaction processing (mostly online updates today);
• Specific applications: payroll, GL, etc• Server & workstation systems software
updates/upgrades: e.g., operating systems; virus scanners; internet browser; systems mgmt software; MSOffice;
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IT Management
Production Test Plan• Document the tasks required to build, install
and configure the system
• Internally, it documents commitment of other departments
• Externally, it commits vendors to the plan
• Prepare a plan: who, what, when, checkpoints, precedents, sign-offs, etc.
• Distribute the plan
• Hold a final meeting just before the “Roll out”
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IT Management
Plan Deployment for Clients: Desktops and/or Browsers:
Stages: • Setup users’ security• Build the production version• Develop setup scripts• Create a delivery package• Set version counter for registry• Migrate to production• Release desktop version• Confirm installations.
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IT Management
Plan Deployment: Advance Preparation: • Prepare plan• Assign tasks• Begin installation testing during
integration test phase
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IT Management
Your Turn (small groups): You are a project manager working on the Urgent
Care Health Clinic project in the consulting division at IBM that specializes in developing new systems for the Health Industry. The system you have developed for Kitchener will be used Canada wide in 28 locations.
• What configurations will you initially test for deployment?• One year from now, how could this change?• What impact on IBM operations can this have?
• Create a high level deployment plan.
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IT Management
The War Room
• A location for the team to work and meet during deployment
• You need: chairs, work surfaces, computers, telephones, flip charts, white boards, 24x7 access, etc.
• Decorate the walls with project plans, database design, etc.
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IT Management
Maintain Focus on the Project
• Be prepared for staff to panic
• Know the personalities of your team
• Be prepared to make decisions
• Be prepared to “lighten up”
• Remember to eat and sleep
• Maintain a sense of humour
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IT Management
Environmental Impact Study“Stuff happens!”
Goal - minimize disruption
Verify – schedules,server space,bandwidth/performance
Check interaction with other systems – changes occur
Update the Help Desk on your project
Update your contact list of support staff
Review the deployment plan one more time!
CREATE FALLBACK/CONTINGENCY PLAN
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IT ManagementAs project deadline nears:• Triage the remaining functionality and
analyse the impact of the removal of any functionality
• NB: Leave time for testing
• Client’s decision:
• Full launch – incomplete and buggy
• “Soft launch” – e.g. a trial version
• Phased launch
• Don’t hide problems from your client or user
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IT Management
Cutover: Test the Production System
Happens after you have built the environment and before system is available in production
• Prepare a test plan
• Use “live” data
• Involve the users
• Do it outside normal business hours
• Minimize downtime
• If system fails, be prepared to rollback
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IT Management
Troubleshooting:
Use company help desk, if possible
• Document the problem formally
• Inform user of progress
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IT Management
Track User’s Problems and Questions
• Be ready for problems and questions
• Document all occurrences of issues, bugs, anomalies, etc.
• Have a Change Request form for users to submit problems
• Review issues daily
• Prepare a summary report at completion of deployment
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IT Management
From Development Mode to Maintenance Mode
• Help Desks create a ticket for every incident
• Developers will resist “tickets”
• Need to track user requests – hand over support to Help Desk and systems support group
• Capture project knowledge
• Document all requests
• Update test case database to include issues
• Update user documentation
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IT Management
Your turn:
You are a project manager working for Conestoga Consulting in Cambridge. You have a project to develop and implement a Web Based Course Enrollment system for Conestoga College. You are nearing the completion of the project and have to come up with a deployment strategy:
What would your strategy be to deploy the system?
Cover: Communications, training, client deployment, type: phased vs trial vs full cutover, production testing, & problem reporting.
