Planning is a crucial part of any successful project. However, not all organizations can turn strategies and goals into tangible assets, due to which, projects of different sizes across industries tend to fail. Formulating a strategic project deployment plan can reduce this chance of failure through IT Ops training.
During this online IT technical training, the employees learn about the nuts and bolts of how strategies are deployed. They learn the importance of project planning and its role in implementing strategies as well as its impact on other planning activities, including change management and organization planning. Training enables them come up with an effective implementation plan without missing out on any crucial components. They take a proactive approach in putting everything up on a template so they can follow steps one-by-one to achieve the ultimate goal.
Last but not the least, IT Ops training play a major role in helping the team identify the common challenges as well as the benefits they can gain from implementing planning and streamlining the process.
Six Steps to Formulating a Strategic Project Deployment
Once you are done with the training part, your next task is to learn about the strategic project deployment steps that are critical to your business success. As mentioned earlier, planning is the part you really need to invest in.
Here are the six steps you need to consider:
The Right Time to Plan
There are two points when an organization should start planning:
- Start of the execution phase
- Specification phase
Regardless of which phase you pick for deployment planning, it is essential to do it before the acceptance testing. This is because the requirements can cause execution changes later on. The strategic planning process is an ongoing effort and organization makes for both actions and decisions to achieve the ultimate organizational strategy. Continuous efforts can influence planning and offer the outlines that enable the organization to achieve its goals.
Moreover, planning at the right time can help manage and prepare the deployment process from minor procedures to high-level processes. Effective planning for a deployment project involves careful monitoring and strategy so you can implement the changes as you go.
The Draft
Involve the participation of all the relevant departments to come up with an effective draft. Don't forget to include the tech people and teams trained for IT Ops to ensure a draft you can actually rely on. The organization needs to focus on the big picture as far as deployment is concerned. It needs information about the communication material and breaks. It is also essential that an organization is aware of the changes the deployment will bring to the business.
For instance, it can give a whole new picture to the job descriptions and can even change various major processes. Having more information will put the organization in a position where it can make informed decisions.
Business Communication
To truly plan and implement a deployment, it is important to go through the entire process with the business, ideally in smaller groups. This will give you a clearer idea of the critical business functions that require enhanced security. Scrutinize to identify any breaks in the system and learn about the impact it could have on the business. Business communication plays a critical role here. Without proper communication with collaborators and clients, it isn't possible to make an agreement.
Cut down the deployment plan
For the regular projects, you may not even need software other than Microsoft Excel. However, for high-level projects, you may need better software to keep up with the demanding deployment planning.
The ideal way is to break it down into several components to be able to follow it authentically. Here's what a basic deployment structure looks like:
- Preliminaries, basic briefing, planning resources
- Estimated time span
- Deployment cutover
- Authentication and product testing
- Production use - day 1, day 2, day 3.. so on and so forth
What seems like a short, simple cut down of the process, will actually involve hundreds of activities and dozens of people to complete the process. Therefore, it is crucial to keep up with collaboration and communication in the plan.
Rollback
You can refer to it as a backup plan or as a safety measure in case an emergency arises or something goes wrong. Some organizations prefer insurance as a rollback plan. It may not be necessary for all project deployment but can be important in some sensitive cases.
Check Points
It is also imperative to keep a check on occurring problems and other real-time information for project deployment. If the problems remain unidentified, they are only going to get worse. Therefore, planned communication plays a crucial role in part of management. Checkpoints help identify and address those problems to make decision making easier.
Additional components of the plan
Want to drive a successful project deployment? These components might help:
- Defining objectives and goals to have a clear idea of what you are getting into.
- Scheduling milestones to set realistic timelines and deadlines for the project.
- Allocating resources as it is one of the core factors that could lead to successful execution. The adequate resources may include money, time, and human resources. So gather all the information and data you need to determine if you have adequate resources or you need more.
- Designate responsibilities by assigning roles. You can utilize your trained employees to take care of the IT Ops. Also, to save your resources, create a team plan and define tasks for each member to get maximum productive results.
In addition to adequate training, you will also need to invest in software tools to elevate the accuracy of progress and track project metrics. Moreover, it gives you the flexibility of saving time, achieving successful deployment results, and stimulate the overall communication within the organization.