Collaboration Transformation Program

Avocado Consulting was engaged by the client to provide supplemental project, business analysis, testing and change communication services for the implementation of SaaS Collaboration deployment.

The objective of this project was to:

• Eliminate the cost overhead of running the current messaging systems
• Eliminate co-existence problems related to the current messaging systems
• Improve key user experiences:-
  • single corporate address list
  • accurate Free/Busy information and easy booking and updating of meetings
  • provide the foundation for future collaboration capabilities

The new messaging system provided the required benefits whilst reducing the total cost of operations for messaging and calendaring services for approx. 47,000 mailboxes across the bank.

A key challenge for the client was to manage the communications plan across user departments so that 1,500 email users could be migrated with each technical deployment.

There were many unresolved Technical issues around the widely diverging technical platforms across the bank, requiring careful user management. Isolated users needed to be informed in a timely manner of their placement in a subsequent deployment.

Management of testing requirements for the technical platform transformation across each of the client divisions also required careful analysis against the Requirements Traceability Matrix to identify technical and schedule risks early in the project.

The Business Change team also had limited experience in working on an IT Program of this size and complexity, especially working out a targeted communication plan to prepare users for the transition to the new platform and dealing with exceptions.

Avocado provided supplemental resources to address the following areas:

• Weekly Stakeholder and Program reporting to ensure visibility of issues.
• Manage preparation activities for each deployment including User Management, Communications Strategy execution and key business representative engagement
• Development of a detailed Business implementation schedule
• Development of a detailed Deployment Plan to ensure Business and IT readiness
• Maintenance of Requirements Traceability Matrix (RTM)
• Preparation of Test Strategy, Test plans and Test Reports
• Provision of Technical assistance to application owners on integration methods with MS Exchange
• Delivery of triage services off the back of deployments
• Management of schedule and risks for Testing activities

The client was able to keep their deployment schedule on track.

Avocado resources were able to mentor the Business Change team by providing a roadmap for communications with end user departments, and tracking of deployment status.

Technical and business risks were identified early ensuring minimal disruption to planned deployment targets.

The SOE platform variants were thoroughly tested to reduce possibility of emergency back-outs.

Lessons learned from previous deployments were shared to ensure that improvements could be made in deployment timetable.