Roll Out

The roll out phase occurs when a version is deployed to the production environment and becomes operational within the business unit. This requires planning and coordination across multiple units:

Business/end user community
The end users of the solution need to be prepared for proper usage of the new version, which often requires training sessions by the designated solution trainer. Additionally, if there are any planned outages as a result of the deployment service window, the business needs to have clear understanding of the timelines and formulate contingency plans for operations during that window, if there are impacts
Change control/operations
It is common in enterprises to task a team other than the implementation team with deployment solutions to the production environment. This is typically handled via a change control or operations team. As such, there must be proper coordination and planning to align deployment schedules with scheduled service windows, or to plan an appropriate new service window. Additionally, the deployment team must have a clear set of instructions on what is required to deploy the solution. Learn more in the example deployment guide and application checklist.
Operations/application support
Enterprises often task a team other than the implementation team with handling first line application support issues. Accordingly, the team that is tasked with providing tier one application support needs to be aware of the deployment as well as be provided any technical or operational guidance necessary. They often work with the implementation lead to formulate proper support and communications strategies.

Common roles that participate within this phase are outlined below.

NOTE: keep in mind that exact roles can change based upon specific project needs. Additionally, it is common for individual people to be responsible for more than one role.

Role

DESCRIPTION

Change control/operations

Individual(s) responsible for deploying the solution into new environments. In some organizations, this is a team completely independent from the implementation/development team.

Project Manager

Individual tasked with coordinating with the various organization units to ensure proper procedures are followed and project plans reflects all tasks.

Implementation lead

Individual that participated in the implementation that can assist with general solution questions during the roll out cycle. Additionally, the implementation lead works with the operations team to assist with knowledge transfer and operational readiness to enable them to support the running solution. S/he can leverage other implementation team members on an as-needed basis.

Solution trainer

Individual(s) tasked with training the user community on how to use the functionality of the new release.

Below outlines available supporting content for this section:

Supporting Content

DESCRIPTION

Application deploy guide (PDF)

This is an example template that outlines the needs of all components within a solution that need to be moved and configured within a new environment in order for the solution to successfully execute. This is an overarching document that includes the overall guide to version deployment. There are sub-sections that will call out to the below mentioned application checklist.

Application checklist (PDF)

This example document is intended to be used as an application artifact to assist with initial deployment and ongoing application configuration validation. This document must highlight and stipulate what all settings should be to enable the relevant application to execute successfully. This is referenced by the application deploy guide, which is used at time of application deployment. This checklist is often handed off to the operations team as well and is used as a means of confirming baseline configuration in the event of a support issue that happens post deployment.

Initial Discovery

This phase focuses on understanding the high level goals, needs and timelines for the potential project. This is typically a one-to-four hour meeting in which the key stakeholders of the solution, such as business subject matter experts (SMEs), technical leads and/or project manager(s) have a discovery conversation with the leads from the potential implementation team (referred to as business architect and technical architect).

Solution Analysis and Planning

The solution analysis and planning phase is the entry point into solution functional scoping and project planning. The goals of this phase are to identify project critical success factors, as well as discover initial functional scope/business requirements and technical drivers and integrations. This phase is typically lead by the business architect and the technical architects leveraged during the initial discovery phase.

Elaboration and Design

The elaboration and design phase expands upon the previous phases by delving deeper into identifying and documenting the business and technical requirements. The goal of the phase is to derive a target solution architecture, technical design and implementation plan. This phase has a typical duration of two-to-six weeks depending on the size of the project.

Implementation

Milestones are best implemented by following a build, test and review cycle. This section goes into detail on who should be involved and best practices to follow.