Peer to Peer Magazine

44 PEER TO PEER: THE QUARTERLY MAGAZINE OF ILTA | SPRING 2017 The Art of Implementations: The Purpose and Process of Projects FEATURES When scheduling any outages, training or anything affecting the end user, send communications no less than a week out. It's a professional courtesy and gives your recipients the impression that you are well- organized and serious. Buy-In and Ownership Although IT many times takes the lead with implementing new solutions, the most successful implementations come from a combined effort between the technology team and the business units of the firm. As an example, something as simple as a new paid time off or overtime system can be designed and implemented by IT, but it will have much higher acceptance and overall success if involving assistants in development and testing and if being promoted by HR. Ongoing support is provided by both teams, which keeps the administrative side engaged. In addition, it keeps IT from being saddled as the "owner" of the solution. This is a simple example, but it can be applied to implementations of any type. Licensing, Hosting and General Negotiating Considerations Soware vendors license their products in many different ways. It's important to understand the advantages and disadvantages of each. Is a license per user or site? Is soware licensed at the organizational level? Is the soware owned by the firm? There will be maintenance costs and fee differences between the various soware licensing models as well. Understand who owns the soware and your data! Something else to consider when negotiating purchases is the terms of the contract. Some of the biggest savings on soware and hardware purchases can be achieved by working with the vendor on length of engagements and payment schedules. For example, the firm can negotiate longer licensing terms (three years vs. one year) to receive more favorable pricing. In addition, negotiating a discount is easier if the firm chooses to prepay or purchase closer to the end of the vendor's financial year. Do your homework! There are many good articles online related to deciphering soware licensing and the advantages of each. On-Premises or Hosted Understanding the firm's (and your clients') risk tolerance is important when considering whether to house systems/data internally or in the cloud. For many firms, a well-wrien document from the vendor that describes the mechanics of how they house, protect, back up and present your data will be all that's needed. In many cases, hosted solutions provide a solid infrastructure environment that rivals the firm's on- premises footprint, but they might cost more (initially, or possibly over time). Where is the system physically located? Many clients have strict rules around statutory requirements within the locales where they do business that will dictate whether a firm can use a hosted solution. What does the vendor do with data? For example, is there language in the contract that confirms hosted data will be given back to your firm and properly destroyed by the vendor at termination of any soware agreements? These are important details to gather. Documentation and IT Resource Participation Just as important as involving administrative teams outside of IT, it's critical that all internal IT teams be involved in implementations, even if it's nothing more than a simple courtesy communication. At Bracewell, three teams (infrastructure, data group and user services) provide input and documentation related to: » Application server names, admin accounts and Active Directory security » Database server names, database names, maintenance plan requirements and service accounts, and data flow/integration documents » Pilot testing, rollout timelines and end-user documentation » Follow-up, ongoing maintenance and end-user support These three teams are represented at both general IT and project-specific meetings and present ongoing The most successful implementations come from a combined effort between the technology team and the business units of the firm.

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