The project scope
It is important to have a clear understanding of the organization environment, the requirements to be fulfilled, the sponsor’s expectations, etc. Most complex implementations require a statement of work to be developed, where the project scope will be documented together with the implementation engagement agreement.

Planning the engagement
Based on a given number of assumptions, an engagement agreement must refer to a timed implementation, with budget and specification information. It has, although, to be clearly indicated here, that an implementation plan is originally built on information known by the parties beforehand. Therefore, its content may vary as progresses are made into the plan.
Resources also have to be allocated to the implementation project team: their availability is a critical success factor. They have to be identified, with their corresponding assignments.

Analyzing specificities
During the Analysis, the effort is concentrated on making sure that the proposed solution is adequately mapped with the specificities of the customer. The organization’s hierarchy, processes are carefully looked at and potential changes, as required to meet the customer expectations, are documented. A technical survey is also completed in order to prepare the to be implemented applications with the operating infrastructure.

Creating tailor-made solutions
Standard activities encompass:

Feeding the applications
Once conventions have been taken, it is important to feed the systems. When possible, data will be loaded electronically in order to avoid manual handling.

Interfacing
In order to provide the full productivity range, solutions might need to be interfaced to existing applications. Therefore, our consultants have the experience to build on demand bridges between applications.

Deploying the solutions
Until now we have worked on what we call a prototype. It is time to deploy the applications enterprise-wide and to move it to the production environment. During this phase, final testing will occurred and system performance will be looked at. System administrators are mentored for the management of the applications. Representative end users will also be trained considering their specific roles and responsibilities. Training is given considering the decisions that were taken during the creation phase. In organizations with an important number of potential users, a train-the-trainer approach is adopted.

Support hand-off
At the end of the deployment phase, an end-project review is conducted. It delivers an end of implementation report that will be passed on to the respective support team. Most of the time, support, maintenance and upgrade services are provided.