In my October blog I introduced you to Finn, the Sheltie puppy I adopted earlier that month.
Coincidentally, he turned 8 months old today! Thinking in terms of projects, we are 4 months post “puppy go-live.” And what a go-live it’s been!
We’ve all been through go-live at one point or another, here at Dana-Farber or elsewhere. Some are memorable for good reasons and some not-so-good. No matter how hard the team has worked in anticipation of that big day – delivering scope, discovering current-state and designing the future-state, creating and executing robust test plans, communicating effectively and regularly with stakeholders, conducting training classes to prepare end users – things can and will go wrong.
I have an admission. I no longer have any polka-dotted socks. None without Finn’s customized venting, anyway.
Whether puppy projects or software implementation projects, any time a new undertaking requires us to change our process or our behavior… yes, bad things can happen.
Does this mean we should abandon ship, that the Puppy Project is a failure, and that maybe a goldfish is a better solution? No, no, and no.
We love him, he loves us. I can’t imagine a day without him sleeping under desk and underfoot. Similarly in the work world, “Do we keep this newly implemented software and figure it out or do we move on and start the implementation all over again with some other vendor?”
Just like trading in The Finn Meister for a few shredded socks, the idea of undergoing another implementation project – especially so soon and on the heels of go-live – is in most people’s minds no option at all. It was A LOT of work to get to go-live! So, what to do?
Yes, Finn attended puppy training and so did we. Training prevented some issues, but obviously not all. “That” wasn’t in the manual! Sound like any implementation experiences you may have had?
Taking a step back, remediation, fine-tuning. Understanding root cause problems, finding and implementing solutions. No, the heavy lifting does not stop at go-live. But, these types of efforts do pay off.
Yes, the socks incident is a problem we didn’t anticipate when designing the future-state during “The Puppy Project, Phase 1.” Our old Sheltie, Shelby, had never stolen a sock or shredded a fuzzy toy in his entire life. Why would the new puppy Sheltie? Until I changed the process of where I place my clean socks, they kept disappearing or becoming mutilated each day since Finn arrived.
This is often the same experience when implementing new software. We don’t always know how our process needs to change until we are using it in “real life.” The key is being open to recognizing and understanding the symptoms (e.g., newly-aerated socks) and taking steps as a team to identifying the underlying root causes. In Finley’s case, the root cause seemed like bad dog behavior, but that’s just a symptom. It’s really the process of where things were left by me, right? Once I understood the real root cause and fixed that (not the dog’s act of stealing), problem SOLVED!
Work-related projects are often some of the same experience, hopefully as fun as integrating Finn into our family has been! Next blog might very well be along the lines of “How one locates and extracts a playful and energetic 8-month-old puppy from a 5-foot snowdrift courtesy of Blizzard 2015!”
Yes – The key will be to understand the symptoms and root causes.
The analogies are great – We need to keep these thought in the forefront of our minds as we proceed with the EPIC Go-Live.