Readiness Assessments
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First published July 08
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Neville Turbit - Project Perfect
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Overview
Deciding if you are ready to start a project, or ready to go live is often a matter of juggling dozens of criteria in your head. Is this done? Is that complete? It is better to have a list of criteria to check off so that you know what you are trying to achieve, and can work towards that goal.
Start a Project Readiness Assessment
There is usually a period of ‘getting organised’ before a project begins. Here are some points you may want to add to your “Start a Project Readiness Checklist”.
- Project Charter complete and approved
- Project Management Plan complete and approved
- Project Schedule complete and approved
- Resources assigned and ready to start
- All roles have been assigned and accepted
- Assigned resources are able to make decisions on behalf of the business
- Backfill for assigned resources is in place
- All team training is complete
- Support teams (data conversion, Process Engineering, etc.) ready to support the project
- Facilities in place for the team
- Security, log ins, system access is in place
- Kick off meeting scheduled
- There are no key differences between any key stakeholders
- A budget is approved
- Tools to manage risks, issues, actions, changes are in place
- No significant issues which could effect the future of the project are outstanding
Go Live Readiness Assessment
The following criteria apply to an IT systems implementation. You can develop your own list to suit your industry.
Criteria
The following should all be complete
Testing
- User Acceptance Tests results signed off.
- There is no outstanding testing
- The full test plan was completed
- All the open defects have been closed
- Performance testing has been completed successfully
- Interfaces to other systems have been tested successfully
- Data conversion was tested and accepted by users
Infrastructure
- Servers configured and deployed
- Network is complete and tested
- Desktop PCs configured and tested
- Security profiles implemented
- Printers installed and tested
- Remote access tested (if required)
- Power sources set up and tested (power points, UPS)
- Backup and restore policy created and tested
Business Processes
- Business processes have been reviewed
- New processes are in place
- Revised forms and templates available
Stakeholders & Communication
- Stakeholders made aware of the implementation (Vendors, Customers)
- Support in place for stakeholders that may be implemented
Data Quality
- Data is of an agreed quality (may require separate list of criteria)
- Data testing is complete
- Any conversion data tasks have been completed
- Data has been validated at conversion
- Open data items are being managed
Applications Management
- All the document deliverables (e.g. Operations documents, User documents) been put under suitable Configuration Management
- The project team have made necessary arrangements to ensure that the document being released is the latest version
- All the source code elements are under Configuration Management
- The project team have made necessary arrangements to make sure that the version of source code element being released is the latest version
- The traceability to changed requirements has been established in all work products such as design, code, unit tests, system tests, acceptance tests, etc
- There is a list of items to be released
- The list mentions file location and version number to be released
Contingency Planning
- The corporate DR plan has been updated
- There is a rollback plan in place
- There are checkpoints for implementation of the plan
- Someone is authorised to call for a rollback
Training and Support
- All training is complete
- User support materials are available
- Support services are trained
- Everyone is briefed on how to handle problems
- Resources are available to fix problems
Benefits
- The measurable benefits have been identified
- We can measure benefits
- We have benchmark measures for benefit realisation
- Someone is responsible for measuring benefits
Summary
This list is only a starting point. Every organisation and every project will have unique requirements. Each project should contribute new items to the list and make it impossible for future projects to say “We didn’t think of that.”
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Readiness Assessments
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