Agenda

  1. Review of purpose and goals of Brown Bag sessions
  2. Review of ground rules
    1. No Interruptions
    2. Everyone Gets a Turn
    3. Come Prepared to Share
  3. Introductions
  4. Discussion -- Planning Support Activities for Projects

Discussion

What's the best way to plan support (training, documentation and help desk) for a project that will go-live?  What successes and challenges have folks run into across their projects?

Best Practices from the Group

  • Starting with the initial planning for the project's budget, start looking at needed support items / resources
  • When doing the actual project planning, include the support organizations to ensure that expectations are set and schedules are negotiated
  • During the Design and Development stages, keep support organizations appraised of additions or changes
  • Develop a Support Model and Maintenance Plan
  • Develop a Transition Plan

General Discussion Notes

  • Whenever possible, combine meetings with the Pubs and Training teams
  • Give support groups a "heads-up" as early as possible that the project will need their services, even if the need is several months away
  • Standards and templates around defining support agreements and support plans would be very helpful (note, please see the Tools section for some options)
  • Let your end-users know early on that a transition from the project team to the support team will happen at the end of the project 
  • Get the support (help desk) team involved in a more active way during UAT or before
  • IF a service level agreement needs to be established to ensure system availability, make sure your end users know about it early-on
  • Know how your end-users will use the system (24 hours a day, during business hours, during seasonal times, etc.)
  • Have a kick-off meeting and include the support team eventhough thy may not be doing any work on the project for a while
  • You can also have a brainstorming session with the support managers before the Kick-off to validate assumptions and make sure the right support team members become involved
  • Secure management commitment for getting support team members involved in the project.  This should include involvement throughout the project.
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