10 Secrets for a Successful TMS Implementation

The first part of the timeline should be focused on accomplishing the priorities. The less important elements should be addressed later in the timeline. Each department’s perspective and internal role’s point of view must be understood to address their issues within the system design and implementation plan. To significantly reduce the project timeline, conduct in parallel, analysis of each user group’s needs. It is also vital to understand the process hand-offs and synchronizations between departments.

The project will not progress unless these team members are given adequate time to invest in the project. It is critical for the core team to have frequent face-to-face collaboration as well as hands-on use of the system. This is particularly important during the design phase, testing, and in ensuring that processes will be seamlessly shared between units and roles. 

Replacing or implementing a new system is no mere technical change. It introduces the opportunity to comprehensively evaluate and improve current business processes and clean up data. If you don’t assess what works, what doesn’t, and what is obsolete -- and conduct a true process rehab -- it will be like just moving all your old data to another dwelling with no major improvements or goal achievements.  

System experts have proven methodologies for approaching projects that are designed to save time, prevent errors, reduce project risks (time and budget), and ensure an optimal solution.They will see your project through a big-picture lens, managing the entire project on a reasonable timeline, and acting as the bridge between internal units and the IT department. Choose a partner with data migration capabilities to allow smooth transition and save an enormous amount of manual work. Provide them with unhindered access to users and data, so they have everything they need to design a winning system.

Your business will transform and your training needs will too. The system you choose needs to be dynamic to grow and evolve with you by continuously remaining on the cutting-edge of technology. Its features must be responsive to your industry’s needs. To stay relevant to you, your expert partner should be able to demonstrate how they stay at technology’s forefront and apprised of your industry’s developments. They should be there for the long-run, available to meet regularly to continuously help you improve processes 

The HLD provides an overview of an entire system, detailing components and interfaces to be developed. Since every solution is based upon a decision, if you have a question about a process, you can go back to the HLD and see the logic.The HLD will expedite the implementation process, allowing you to focus on implementing defined and well-documented solutions. You need to understand these details when you to test the system, otherwise how will you know that the solution works for the organization? Because it thoroughly explains the end-user’s needs and their new systematized processes, the HLD will help you develop end-user training. It is also useful for new employees, as it thoroughly explains their role and tasks.  

When you keep all stakeholders (including the end-users, project team members and management) up-to-date every step of the way, they will feel that they are part of the change and embrace it. If you don't, they will push back and you won't be able to implement the system, no matter how good it is.  Good communication of a new system includes creating and disseminating role-relevant explanations that describe the project’s goals, ongoing status, milestones and achievements.

Learning a new system is like absorbing a new language; it takes enormous amount of effort. Not long ago, we were implementing our system for an airline and the term "evaluation," was flagged as an issue. In our system, the term is used to report an assessment, grade, performance or execution. But for our customer, it specifically referred to a final exam. Rather than to make an entire organization redefine their terminology, which takes time and energy and could cause confusion and errors, we changed the system terminology to match their internal vernacular. The more familiar you can make the system, the sooner users will be productive in it. Look for a flexible system that can adapt itself to match your organization’s unique vocabulary and appearance, as well as operate within your current portals. If this is neglected, the system will take longer to implement since users will not only need to learn a new system, they will need to learn a new language. Train end-user using the company's relevant and familiar actual process scenarios. 

We've discovered that results are different when you ask someone to explain their processes versus showing them. When you say, "show me" during testing, they tend not to forget the details. Discovering this requires simulating real-life scenarios to verify process validity and confirm that the solution defined is acceptable for the end user. Signing off on a process or system without this crucial analysis could weaken your operation instead of optimizing it. 

To ensure that there are minimal issues when you go live, we recommend some thorough test measures. You'll discover what works and what needs improvement, before the company-wide move to the new system. With an incremental rollout, before terminating the legacy system, you can implement critical functionality first, in succession, department by department. If a clean cutover to the new system is planned, compensate by conducting large, deep testing two months prior to go live. Select helpful and forgiving test users to execute all system operations, then conduct lesson learned analysis and correct all issues before going live.