Step Four - Feeding back the results into the project

If you can carry these reviews out early enough then you can benefit from the results and use them to change the way you are managing the project if required. You may need to change some of your original requirements if the results do not meet expectations.

The first review point will really be 3 months after the pilot. You have gone through the pilot, you have conducted the test and you have moved on to the first roll out phase but you should have a review point in the plans where after 3 months you ask the contact points in that department to record results and you have a review session with them to compare the results against the expectations.

If you find the benefits have exceeded expectations then you need to publicise this widely as part of the communications plan. It will help persuade reluctant later users that it is worth the effort of preparing for roll out. It can also help you if you are struggling to obtain more project management resources if you can point to some early success stories.

If you found that you have not achieved some of the benefits you need to look for the reasons and as far as possible seek to address them so that the later phases can obtain the expected benefits. You may find that the pilot took more support than you expected and hence took longer to implement and complete and hence the benefits took longer to obtain. This can help you either make the case for more project resources or for lengthening the planned implementation timetable.

If you find that you are not achieving the productivity benefits you expected you need to review the business process design and the training process and see what is preventing you achieving the required benefits. If you identify and correct the problem then you need to adjust your training plans accordingly on future roll outs to avoid the problem occurring again.

Finally - if you find you are not meeting all your record keeping requirements then you may need to become more prescriptive and cut out some of the loopholes by tightening up procedures and giving staff less latitude. This would need to be accompanied by additional training and promotional activities to explain why tougher measures are required to meet corporate record keeping requirements.