Your SaaS Application Implementation Framework

Tom's latest eBook has been released on Amazon: "The 7 Myths of IT Integrations". Tom is also a Program Director for a large Midwest corporation and has been an adjunct faculty member at Walsh College. He has managed global web initiatives, data center moves and large multi-million dollar programs.

  Applications Delivery   CRM   Information Technology   Stakeholder Management   Strategy  

Once upon a time, almost all software was custom written. This gave you and your team a high degree of control over the application and you could make it do anything--given enough time and money. Things evolved (as they should), and the industry moved from custom to commercial off the shelf (COTS), and finally on to Software as a Service that resides in the cloud. As each of these evolutions occurred, project management has had to evolve along with it.

With today's vendor packages, you now have software that is so completely enmeshed with the business processes they support that it would difficult--if not impossible--to pull the two apart. Whether you are implementing ERP, CRM, HR, finance or any line of business application, properly understanding the work is key to planning it correctly.

Without knowing the roles, it can be like running a relay race--but with no one to hand the baton to after you complete your lap. To solve that problem, I have recently been using a handy model to clearly outline the types of work that need to be done by both IT and the business in order to activate most SaaS packages that I have encountered today.

Start with first things first:

1. Hardware (IT): Anything that needs to be hosted on a server in the data center, a dedicated internet pipe and any of the secure virtual private network (VPN) tasks can only be accomplished …

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