Technology has become a major driver of business success. It can also hold companies back if it’s not optimised and upgraded regularly to support company goals.
Digital improvements help companies stay competitive and lead to efficiency, sales, and productivity increases. 56% of CEOs say that digital improvements in their organisations have driven increased revenue.
The top benefits that executives cite for evolving their technology infrastructure are:
- Improved operational efficiency (40%)
- Faster time to market (36%)
- Ability to meet customer expectations (35%)
While change can be intimidating, it’s also necessary to keep up in a world where technology evolves so quickly. Going through an IT infrastructure audit is a first important step to understanding how change can positively impact your organisation.
Planning a major change in a business process takes proper planning in order to get the benefits you’re working towards. Using digital tools to help you manage an IT project reduces stress and workload by helping you automate and stay on top of all the moving parts.
Steps for Implementing a Fruitful Technology Project
Communication and organisation are two key fundamentals of successful project planning. Using change management tools and project management applications to help structure your project plan and communication give you a much better chance for success.
Following are the steps to take to successfully plan and deliver an IT project.
Identify Your Objectives
You first need to identify goals and needs that will allow you to create a roadmap for your project. This involves having an IT infrastructure audit completed that can help you identify technology gaps and opportunities for growth.
Our complimentary IT audits by FutureRange are designed to help companies build the right technology foundations for their future growth.
Once you’ve identified the scope of your IT transformation and the exact IT tools you’ll be implementing (and phasing out), you can move on to putting your plan together.
Choose Your Tools, Processes, and Team Players
When you’re implementing a change in a process or way of doing things, such as moving your team to virtual Citrix Workspaces, the term for guiding that transformation is “change management.” Understanding the steps in a change management process will go a long way towards helping you succeed.
When a solid change structure is in place, projects are 6x more likely to achieve their objectives.
Some of the key components used in change management are:
- Identification of obstacles
- Engaging employees and other stakeholders
- Outlining communication and timelines
- Establishing ongoing feedback
In order for your project management process to go smoothly, you need to identify your key team players that are responsible for various areas of the project and what tools your team will be using to track project progress, communicate updates, and gauge status.
There are multiple cloud-based project management tools on the market that can help you do that. Getting the help of an IT professional can assist you with choosing the best one for your team.
Create Your Roadmap
Once your human and digital assets are in place, you’ll want to decide on a timeline for implementation and benchmarks along the way that can gauge how well you’re staying on track.
This involves breaking down each part of the overall project into tasks and subtasks, deciding who to assign them to, and creating a timeline with flexibility for adjustments as needed.
Here are examples of some of the tasks that can be involved in an IT project:
- Schedule meetings with employees to introduce the project
- Coordinate with cloud service provider for team training
- Migrate data from old to new systems
- Configure integrations with other cloud platforms for data sharing
Use your project planning and change management tools to input all your tasks, timelines and methods of update. This includes things like alerts if something is past due, automated email check-ins with team members, and potentially a Gantt chart that lays out your timeline and progress.
Implement Your Plan
The work you do in creating your roadmap will make implementation much smoother. If done right, you’ll be able to “check boxes” or move cards forward on a Kanban board to visually see progress or stuck points in your project timeline.
Successful implementation of an IT project involves fluid communication so there are no dropped balls or miscommunications about task scope or timeline.
Poor communication is the primary contributor to project failure.
Using cloud-based communication and collaboration tools, like Office 365 and Microsoft Teams, help keep your team on the same page and allow them to check in on any device from any location.
An important piece of implementation is testing and training before you go live with your new technology process. Testing and training both ensures that your users are fully familiar with the new business process before they’re using it live and will also uncover any bugs or adjustments needed in the software implementation to make it more successful.
Having flexibility in your IT project plan is key because inevitably there will be unexpected challenges along the way that may change the scope or timeline of your project. Being able to move through those effectively will ensure they don’t derail your success.
Ongoing Improvement & Feedback
Your project isn’t completed once you hit your “go live” date. You’ll want to invite user feedback on the new IT process, how it’s impacting their efficiency and productivity, and any improvement suggestions they may have.
Tweaking your IT process after implementation is important as some bumps in the road aren’t uncovered until a new technology process has been in use for several weeks. Keeping that feedback loop open and planning to make adjustments based upon that feedback, can make all the difference in the success of the IT project.
Schedule Your Free IT Infrastructure Audit with FutureRange
Take your first step towards a digital transformation that could improve your productivity and bottom line. FutureRange experts can guide you every step of the way.
Contact us today to schedule your free IT audit. Call +353 1 2960 560 or reach us online.
