Train Your Users Early: Once the plan has been created, you want to start identifying who will be trained on the solution. You want to do this early in the project so that you have more in-house knowledge and expertise which will help lower consulting costs.
Set-up a strong Testing Process: When designing your Users Acceptance Training (UAT) phase, divide it into stages that are easier to manage. Testing can be completed by your end users to give them more exposure to the solution after it has been ‘blessed’ by your power users.
Avoid Technical Complications: From a technical point of view, you must minimize customizations. Utilize as many built-in features as you can during the first phase. Only load the actual data you need; your CPM solution is not your General Ledger (GL). Use dynamic variables where ever you can, dynamic variables allow you to choose members dynamically based on their hierarchical relationship.
Prepare for Go-Live: Don’t just release your solution to your end-users. Make sure that end-user training has been completed to make for a more positive first impression.
- Make sure the implementation consultants are in sync with your project team.
- Have regular status meetings to communicate project progress and discuss issues.
- Ask questions! All parties should ask questions to avoid making assumptions.
- Choose your team. Consultants come with various skills and different levels of strength in each skill. Some are strong in business communication and some have stronger technical skills. Work with your implementation partner and request if you can put together a team of consultants with skills that best fit your needs.
- During User Acceptance Testing (UAT), meet more often to review issues and priorities.
- Review your solution as it develops, not at the end.
For more best practices for implementing leading budgeting and planning software, read our full article here.
Budgeting and Planning Software Implementation – Outsourcing or In-House?
Getting the most from your investment into a Budgeting and Planning Software solution heavily relies on a successful platform implementation. While a lackluster implementation limits the platform’s true scope and utilization, it also fails to inspire user adoption due to potential gaps in product training, improper or incomplete template, report, and process design, and inefficient user onboarding processes.
Lack of Product Knowledge: Based on product demos and other pre-sale sessions, customers can envision how the selected budgeting and planning software solution can help them with their financial processes. However, when the implementation time comes, where those theoretical observations require a practical application, in-house implementation usually suffers due to a lack of in-depth product knowledge.
Resource Availability: Implementation projects involve resources from multiple departments including finance and IT. It is often observed that with the workload of the IT department, they either have to pause some of their ongoing projects or juggle multiple projects at once to accommodate a CPM implementation project.
Risk Reduction: There are inherent risks involved with the implementation of any technology solution. Whether it is a delay in delivery due to evolving scope or facing a technical hurdle, having an external implementation partner mitigates such risks.
Change Management: There are several top-notch CPM platforms available today that an organization can purchase, but if end users are not adopting the platform to operate their financial processes then even the best product won’t be able to fulfill their needs. With most new technology solutions, the common notion for internal users is to resist it.
To learn all about Budgeting and Planning Software Implementation, read our full article here.
