Tips for a successful project go-live at your company

Is there a way to ensure a successful project go-live? When it is finally time to put the system into production, there is no turning back. A lot of resources and working hours went into the project, so it had better work fully, and you need to make sure the go-live goes as smoothly and naturally as possible.

As you probably know, there are many ways a go-live can go wrong. But let's focus on the other side of the coin: success. Good preparation and proper planning can mitigate risks and ease the transition to a new system or simply to an improvement.

So how do you ensure a successful project go-live at your company? Here are some tips that will help:

6 tips for a successful project go-live

1. Have a detailed project plan

A project plan is one of the most important pieces, whether for an implementation, an upgrade or an improvement. Detailed planning that identifies every task, with a resource assigned to each one, is key to success.

This is the starting point. Basic as it is, many professionals still forget or disregard this step, and it is from here that the rest of the activities can be developed, leading up to a successful go-live. That requires commitment to writing things down, drawing up diagrams, reports and so on.

2. Know your risks and mitigate them

Knowing a project's risks and preparing for them is vital before go-live. There are inevitably risks in any project, and although testing helps minimize them, it is no guarantee.

You can often gauge the likelihood of a good implementation by how involved end users and subject matter experts are during user acceptance testing (read more about acceptance testing in tip 4). If many people take part in acceptance testing, you have a good chance of a successful go-live. If fewer people are involved than needed, you may be in for a nightmare, because the go-live essentially becomes the testing phase.

If that happens, it is still possible to go live successfully. You can prepare measures to mitigate the problem, such as making sure developers are on site, ready to start editing the product immediately, in real time, and fixing issues as they surface.

3. Extend your timeline if needed

The best-case scenario is a go-live without any problems, but that is not always the reality. Sometimes, no matter how much preparation you have done, issues will come up. When that happens, there is nothing wrong with extending your timeline as a matter of prudence and stability.

At the end of the day, what matters most is having a system with capabilities that let your team work effectively and productively and let your organization grow. If it takes a little longer, after carefully weighing the costs and resources involved, especially against the guidelines in the project plan, but you end up with a solid, well-functioning system, it is still a success.

4. Emphasize user acceptance testing

Acceptance testing is not just about checking whether the project works. More importantly, it is about making sure users accept and work with the new system. You can put your project through dozens of tests, but if employees cannot use it in the end, your project will still be a failure.

Also be wary of users who report that everything is fine but have not tested the software properly. Make sure that what they asked for is what they got and, if they find they need something different from the system, make sure they get it. You do not want to reach the end of the project and find out that users are not using the product; otherwise, the whole project will have been a waste.

Another very important point: set aside a considerable amount of time in the initial scope and project plan for testing, document the tests, and do not run them right when users need the tool the most.

5. Don't forget to create a go-live checklist

Having a checklist to guide the project go-live is essential, yet it can be one of the most overlooked factors. A cutover checklist should be unique to each initiative, with its own list of actions to perform and the items needed for that specific go-live to work.

Here are some examples of items that should be included in a project go-live checklist:

• Guides that show employees the steps to follow during and after the transition, for example, how to log in to a new system, perform simple steps, and so on. They can be printed or digital documents; either way, they should be simple and easy to understand.
• A shutdown schedule for the old system showing exactly when the new system will be online and when the old one will no longer be active. This can be a single date or a series of dates if you are rolling out the new system in phases.
• Tasks to complete before the old system is shut down. You can also list when you will let customers and suppliers know about the upgrade and how it will affect their interactions with your system, including any new links they need.
• A timeline of all tasks, including testing and training, as well as vital integrations and data migration. Make sure that important tasks, such as data transfers to your bank and other integrations, are set up before the system is shut down.
• Emphasis on the changes and the scope of the newly implemented project, keeping in mind that users may be very used to the legacy systems.

6. Hire a consulting firm to help you

The best way to ensure a successful project go-live is to hire a specialized consulting firm to help you. This way, you avoid problems that could cause financial losses, deliverables that differ from the original expectations, or months of issues and rework with the new system.

An SAP consulting firm is the key to making the implementation or improvement project a complete success, delivered on time and within the original scope. To do that, look for a partner with proven quality, committed to its clients and with success stories in projects of varying complexity.

This was an overview of how to achieve a successful project go-live. Want to better understand how an SAP consulting firm can help you? Then check out this success story from the partnership between Intellevo and Votorantim Cimentos!