The baseball regular season started at the beginning of April and completed on Sunday October 1st. Over those five months 30 teams played a total of 2,430 games. There were also some impressive numbers to consider; 185,295 plate appearances led to 42,214 hits and a record high 6,105 home runs. But some other numbers jumped out just as much. There was a record of 40,104 strikeouts and 32,942 runners left on base.
Here in Wisconsin, we were reminded of how the little things that happen over a 162-game season can make your year a success or failure. The Milwaukee Brewers were one of the surprise teams in the National League. They battled until the second-to-last day of the season, losing a disappointing game by one run to the St. Louis Cardinals, and were eliminated from the playoffs. It made Brewers fans think back to all of the plays along the way that were not made. The little plays, that if just a few had been completed successfully, may have meant that the team would be in the playoffs.
That is kind of what deploying a document management system is like. There are a lot of moving parts to any system. Plus, there are the variables that must be accounted for. Things that may or may not be under your control. In some cases, these things may be unknown until you begin to deploy the system. However, there are ways to avoid these potential pitfalls and have a successful rollout.
Before we begin to deploy a FileBound Document Management solution we conduct a discovery with our clients. The discovery process is used to flesh out the little nuances that are unique to that organization. The process begins with an interview of key personnel. We start by documenting the current state of how they process their documents. Surprisingly, this step is not as straight forward as it sounds. Often times one department does not know how or why another department does a related task. We see this a lot with Accounts Payable approval processes. Accurately documenting the current state creates the foundation from which we design the overall solution.
The next step is the future state. This is the fun part, where, working with the client we develop what the system will ultimately look like, and how it will work. You dig deep here, working to uncover any potential issues that can upend the system. You test and retest so that when the system is deployed it works as planned and expected. It’s here that a misstep can lead to failure down the line.
Just like a successful baseball season, deploying a document management solution requires that you eliminate the missteps, avoid the strikeouts and leaving runners on base. You strive for perfection and resist the urge to bypass steps and take short cuts. Communication is critical for success and long-term relationship of client and reseller. In the end, it’s the little things that you do along the way that matter the most.
Jack Arnston is a Principal at The Priton Group. He can be reached at jarnston@pritongroup.com.