A UK Industry Association

Home HCL Services HCL Assignments HCL Partners Site Map Contact us
Dates Sept 1999-June 2000

Length of Assignment

9 months

Project Budget

£330k. This only covered the marginal costs of the project, being mainly the 3rd party suppliers and hardware. The real cost of the project would have been considerably higher had internal staff time been factored in.

Project Organisation structure

HCL established a Project Board of 4 senior staff, including the Client Sponsor who was also the FD. A Super-User Group of 20 was also formed, comprising key staff from each operational area. Total users affected were 200.

 

Description of assignment:

This assignment was a project turn-around. A membership system had been purchased from a vendor and the implementation had run into problems owing to lack of system functionality. Staff resistance to the system was high and manifested itself in a proliferation of 'homegrown' databases holding member information which could not be accessed centrally and which were inadequately maintained leading to member dissatisfaction.

 

HCL conducted a gap analysis of the original specifications and the capabilities of the system. It quickly became clear that although the system could deliver the core functionality of recording, maintaining and manipulating member records, it was not capable of providing other key functionalities such as Publications, Event Management and integration with the Finance systems. The system had already been paid for so HCL attacked the problem in 3 ways.

bullet

A Project Team was established to plan and coordinate the project. Important activities such as Training, documentation and User Acceptance testing were formalised by the team.

bullet

A Super-User Group was established to manage staff expectations of the system. This group was formed to introduce the workable parts of the system into the organisation and to test new releases from the vendor. Considerable effort was put into Change Management in this part of the project. The Super-Users worked with staff in their areas to overcome resistance to the system and encourage its use.

bullet

HCL established a User Group of 16 user companies as a lobby group to encourage the vendor to respond to user requirements. This User Group was formed in the face of resistance by the Vendor but in time came to be regarded as an asset by them and was used in their marketing material. One of the key improvements introduced was in the release strategy. The User Group decided that releases would be issued quarterly. The User Group created a priority list of all required enhancements and worked with the Vendor to decide which of the items could be included in which release. Testing was then performed in tandem by all User companies. Previously, releases had been arbitrarily designed and specified according to the Vendor's perception of user and market needs which were often incorrect.

 

HCL also worked with the client FD to 'claw back' £50k of the original costs to cover parts of the system which were not 'fit for purpose'.

Send mail to Hartstone with questions or comments about this web site.
Last modified: 06/04/08