Section Three: Conducting a Needs Assessment and Developing an Implementation Plan

Conducting a Needs Assessment

The success of your implementation is directly related to the amount of effort and collaboration that goes into planning the project. To ensure that all departments actively participate in the planning process, you should assemble a project management team that includes each department head, as well as IT and records management personnel. You should also appoint a project manager, who will establish deadlines, assign roles and tasks, and monitor the project’s overall progress.

The following topics described in detail next are important to look for when selecting a document management system for your organization:

• Analysis
• Process Analysis

Developing and Implementation Plan

Careful planning is one of the most important elements of a successful implementation. Planning needs to begin before the first dollar is spent on the project. Projects have a much better chance of success if someone has documented, in detail, the project scope, system requirements, schedule, business case and technical environment before you begin. As obvious as it may sound, these first steps are frequently not accomplished until the project has already started. The vendor you choose as your document management consultant should assist you in the creation of a document management implementation plan. If you try to do this in-house, without the assistance of trained professionals, you may miss important elements that would greatly affect the success and cost of your document management system implementation.

The following topics described in detail next are important to look for when selecting a document management system for your organization:

• Creating an Implementation Plan
• Choosing What to Outsource
• Scaling From a Pilot Project to an Organization-Wide Solution
• Training Staff
• Implementation Consulting
• Vendor Resources
• Support and Maintenance 

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