Roll Out

The rollout phase is 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 / User Community
The end users of the solution need to be prepared for proper usage of the new version. This can often include training sessions by a 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 is an impact on them.
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 release management, change control or operations team. As such, there must be proper coordination and planning to align deployment schedules with scheduled service windows; or if 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.
Operations / Application Support
In enterprises it is common to task a team other than the implementation team with handling first line application support issues. Accordingly the team that is tasked with providing tier 1 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

Release Management / Change Control / Operations

Persons responsible for deploying the solution into new environments. In some organizations this is a team completely independent from the implementation / development team.

Project Manager

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

Implementation Lead

The lead from the implementation that is on hand to assist with general solution questions during the rollout 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. They can leverage other implementation team members on an as needed basis.

Solution Trainer

Persons 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

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 Check List.

Application Check List

This example document is intended to be used as an application artifact to assist with initial deployment but also ongoing application configuration validation. This document must highlight and stipulate what all settings must be to enable the relevant application to execute successfully. This Check List 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 less than a couple of hours of conversation where the key stakeholders of the solution, such as business subject matter experts (SME), technical leads and project manager have a 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 to discover initial functional scope, business requirements, technical drivers and integrations. This phase is typically lead by the Business Architect and the Technical Architect leveraged during the Initial Discovery phase. Once the functional and technical factors are determined, a high-level solution vision and reference architecture can be formulated to articulate how the key components of the proposed solution can be aligned and leveraged to achieve the functional requirements. Additionally, initial infrastructure planning can be formulated to support the project needs. With this reference architecture in place, initial estimates can be formulated and work breakdown structures generated to allow for initial project costing; allowing for more detailed budgeting and planning discussions.

Elaboration and Design

Upon completion of the SA&P phase there should be a foundational understanding of the goals, scope and vision of the proposed solution. The Elaboration and Design phase expands the prior work by delving deeper into identifying and documenting the business and technical requirements in order to drive to derive at a target solution architecture, technical design and implementation plan. This phase can be of a short duration depending on the size of the project.

Implementation

The below Build, Test and Review cycles fall within a given milestone. This section goes into detail on who should be involved and best practices to follow.