Step Five - Corporate business processes
As detailed in stage four, step two, the implementation plan assumes that by the end of phase five you will have rolled out the core solution to all the departments within the scope of your project so all administrative and most core academic staff should have access to the system. At this stage you will already have partially taken ownership of the system. You will have staff trained in administering the system and records staff trained in conducting all the required records management functions on the system and the bulk of your staff trained in using the system.
Phase six calls for the development of a number of corporate business process management applications on the system that can streamline administration and provide a number of core benefits.
One of the first decisions will be - do you need to call the supplier back in to provide support in specifying and developing these applications or a third party consultancy or do you now have the skills and resources to do the work in-house?
The second decision will be validating or drawing up a revised list of candidate processes in scope of phase six. The tasks themselves will then include:
| Task | Description | Comments |
| The first three tasks should be conducted once at the start of phase six | ||
| 1 | Additional information gathering and analysis | Interviews, process modelling, areas for improvement |
| 2 | Feasibility study and options review | Review business case for improving each process and priority |
| 3 | Detailed plan for preferred option | Timetable and resources for implementation |
| The next three tasks should be repeated for each process | ||
| 4 | Specification | Specify new process, discuss and sign off |
| 5 | Pilot | Pilot new process in one department |
| 6 | Roll out | Roll out new process across institution |
As part of the information gathering task the relevant stakeholders will need to be interviewed and the current processes documented and the objectives and scope for improvement agreed.
The team will then need to review the case for implementing each business process and agree a recommended priority for each process. A high-level business case should be made for each option.
The result should be a report for the project board outlining the options reviewed, the requirements identified, the case for improving/automating each process and a recommended course of action.
If the case is agreed then the team would need to draw up a high level plan for implementing the agreed number of processes in the agreed sequence.
The team would then need to draw up a more detailed plan for each process covering the standard steps of specification; piloting and roll out. The tasks included under those headings would be as described above for earlier phases.
At the end of phase six you will have staff using the system to meet their specific team and departmental requirements and also using the system to play their role in core corporate business processes.
