Software Implementation Plan: 5

Critical Steps

In today’s market, small businesses have to compete against massive enterprises.

One way to ensure they can keep up is by using the right tools and software to
improve processes, optimize workflows, and increase productivity. With a strong
and efficient workflow in place for all major processes within a business, it’s
possible to bring in more revenue in less time.

But if it were that easy, all businesses would be doing it. Finding the perfect
platform for your business needs means you have to spend time and attention
researching and possible options, and in most cases, a potentially significant
financial investment.

Not only this, but people are creatures of habit and those habits are difficult to
change. Your team may be used to doing things a certain way already and if that

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way works just fine for them, completely changing their business processes may
cause their resistance to change. This resistance could prove detrimental to the
entire company.

The answer: Develop a plan first.

What is a Software Implementation Plan?

Why Do You Need One?
A software implementation plan helps your company find and deploy the right
software for your business needs. Adopting new software is both time-consuming
and can be costly in terms of finances and human resources. Without a plan in
place before the process starts, it’s likely your software adoption will fail.

With a properly developed plan in place, you can avoid making hasty decisions,
ensure the correct people are involved in the implementation, configure the
system correctly and create a situation where employees can truly appreciate the
full benefits the software has to offer while also providing adequate training.

For many businesses, adopting new software is a serious undertaking. If you

mess up the implementation process, you’ll likely experience operational
downtime which translates to lost revenue. On the other hand, if you take time
to do your research and prepare ahead of time, your company can reap many
benefits including, accelerated growth, cost savings, increase process
efficiency, and improved visibility.

Software Implementation Plan: 5 Critical

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Steps
Step One: Build Your Business Case
Regardless of how big or small your business is, implementing new software isn’t
something you do just because you feel like it.

While smaller businesses are more nimble than their larger competitors, mistakes
of any kind can be costly and hurt any company, especially those on a limited
budget.

Changes, such as upgrading current software or rolling out something new, are
difficult for larger organizations too because the decision-making process
becomes more complex as a company grows. Research shows about 72% of senior
executives think bad strategic decisions were “about as frequent as good ones or
were the prevailing norm in their organization.”

How do you make your case?

Consider your pain points: What challenges does your company face?
What aspects need improvement? Talk to your staff and other relevant
stakeholders to get answers. If you find that organizational efficiency is
low and the company is losing revenue, focus efforts on that. Work to
align your business objectives with your goals.
Come up with a solution: Provide a detailed outline of, for example,
how a new procurement software or new project management software
could improve both team efficiency and productivity and why it’s critical
to addressing the pain points you found.
Conduct a cost and benefit analysis: The main reason to build a strong
business case is to justify the investment. Analyze both the tangible and
intangible costs along with the tangible and intangible gains the company
stands to achieve with a successful implementation.

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 Develop a timeline: Set reasonable time expectations around how long it
takes to evaluate the software, implement the new system, and realize a
return on the investment.
Plan how you will manage change: Research indicates that 70% of
organizational transformation programs fail. When it’s less risky to turn
down a proposal, executives may have a harder time deciding to back it.
Emphasize the cost of not addressing these pain points and make sure
they understand that you know the risks as well as the steps you are
going to take to steer clear of the same mistakes other organizations have
made in the past. Change management is crucial for a smooth
implementation phase.

Step Two: Choose the Right Vendor

Once you have the necessary support, you have to find the most suitable software
vendor. Whichever vendor you choose will be a strategic partner in your business
so it’s important to take your time with the selection process.

Questions to ask as you narrow down your options include:

What is it that you need? consider things such as features, price, cloud-
based vs. on-premise vs. hybrid, and so on.
How long has the vendor been in business? What are their credentials?
Is the software scalable?
Are there hidden costs?
What do their customers have to say about them?
Does the software integrate with the systems you already have in place?
Does the vendor provide software training?
Does the implementation cost include after-sales support?
Are updates and upgrades cloud-based?

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Step Three: Protect Against Scope Creep
If you’re not careful, the additional features different software options provide
can scare you off track. The software market offers a variety of options and
customizations so preparing a needs document that outlines everything you’re
looking for is critical when it comes to software evaluation.

Ideally, the document should give vendors a clear picture of what your
organization’s specific needs are. If you decide to set up the software that every
available functionality or to customize all of its capability at one time, this is when
scope creep happens. It’s a trap you’ll fall into that results in:

Exponentially increase cost

Stakeholders who lose interest
Dragging out the implementation process

Projects rarely turn out exactly as they are expected to and software
implementation is no different. Changes during the project life cycle are a natural
part of business, but to prevent scope creep, you must exercise a certain amount
of control.

This is why it’s crucial that your implementation team applies project
management best practices and that everyone works together to maximize
software usage for their departments.

Regardless of the size of your team, a collaborative project management tool

allows you to flush out your software implementation process plan. Some options
include:

Wrike: This is a good choice for project tracking features like Gantt
charts and Kanban boards.
Asana: This option is ideal for work or Centric features such as
monitoring workload. it contains a number of built-in project templates

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 and is user-friendly.
Basecamp: This is an ideal choice for task prioritization, scheduling
features, and document storage.
Trello: This is a highly customizable platform that can be adapted to any
workflow or process. Boards consist of cards, which can be assigned to
individuals and moved around as needed. It integrates with a number of
other tools, as well.

Step Four: Put Together an Implementation

Team
Your software implementation team is crucial to project success. It can be as
small as two people and can grow to as many people as you need to get the job
done. Typically, the more departments that need software, the bigger the
implementation team becomes. Each department should have a representative to
function as the champion of the new software. This representative will also
answer questions and help train their colleagues.

A team may include:

Project owner: This is usually the head of a business or the department

that is implementing the new system. It may also be a team of executives
rather than a single person.
Project manager: This is the person responsible for organizing the
implementation process, including the budget.
System administrator: This person oversees the system setup and
technical administration
Communication liaison: This person serves as the liaison between the
project team and the end-users.
Core department members: These are the people championing for the
software, from each department in your organization.

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Remember, the type of people you assigned to your implementation team reflects
your commitment to the success of the initiative. As such, it’s best to only include
team members who are extremely talented, team-oriented, and equally committed
to the project’s success.

Step Five: Put it to Use

The last thing you want is software the no one wants to use. Of course, if you’re
the boss, you can simply require your team to adopt the new system whether they
like it or not. But, if you do this, you should be prepared for pushback and an
increase in employee dissatisfaction.

To avoid having to force your team to use the new software, there are a few
things you can do:

Prepare your team for the switch as early as you can: The sooner you
let employees know about the change, the more accepting of it they will
be.
Assign a change manager: This person will spearhead the change and
give employees a clear person to approach when it comes to questions,
training, feedback, and other information.
Clearly communicate benefits: When everyone understands the
benefits the software offers them, you’re more likely to see higher
adoption rates.
Provide adequate training: For employees to use the software and reap
the benefits, they must know how it operates.
Continue to provide support: Even if the implementation process itself
moves smoothly, it’s important to expect issues to arise especially during
the early stages. To keep things running as smoothly as possible, make
sure I help desk or tech support team is available to assist when needed.

You can use the ADKAR Change Model to ensure sustained adoption. Better yet,

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you can use this methodology to manage any kind of change within your
organization.

Awareness: Make sure everyone recognizes the problem.

Desire: Incentivize using benefits and consequences
Knowledge: Know how to create and maintain change
Ability: Work to close skill gaps that restrict change
Reinforcement: Measure and reward wins

While it may be tempting to use the same messaging and communication about
the implementation process for each team within your organization, you’ll have
better luck if you take the time to personalize all of it for each team. Each team is
likely to have different goals that the new system helps them to achieve. By
honing in on these team-specific goals, you’ll be able to drive adoption.

It may take time to get everyone up to full speed with the new system and that’s
okay. As long as you continue to work better with the software every day, you’ll
get there. To support the long-term implementation of the new software,
prioritize the capabilities to have to be mastered first. This helps influence
training and provides benchmarks for your check-ins.

Focus efforts on continuous improvement. Training is a central part of this

process. After training staff on how to use the system, provide additional learning
opportunities as needed. When there is a major system update, consider hosting
another training session to ensure everyone understands the changes.

For a successful software implementation, communication is key. IT leaders,

system champions, and implementation teams share the process, and all play a
role in engagement and adoption.

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