Phase II – Proving the technology

In this section, we are going to discuss the approach to proving that the technology is fit for purpose. This is another very important piece of work that needs to be successfully completed once you have completed Phase I and is somewhat different to how you would typically approach an IT project. This is the same approach you should take for any end user computing type of project.

As we discussed previously, the starting point is to focus on the end users rather than the IT department. After all, these are the people that will be using the applications daily and know what they need to get their jobs done. Rather than giving them what you think they need, why not ask them what they really need and then, within reason, deliver their requirements. As the saying goes, don't try and fit a square peg into a round hole, as no matter how hard you try, it's just never going to fit.

First and foremost, you need to design the solution around the requirements of the end user rather than spending time and money on building an infrastructure only to find out at the end of the project that it doesn't deliver what the users require.

Once the previous steps have been discussed and documented, you should be able to build a picture around what's driving the project. You will understand what you are trying to achieve/deliver and, based upon hard and fast facts from the assessment phase, be able to work on what success should look like. From there, you can then move into testing the technology in some shape or form.

There are three distinct roads we can take within the testing cycle, and it might be the case that you don't need all of them. In fact, it is usually best to jump straight to the last one if you can and look at deploying a pilot to save time and cost, and get the end users engaged early. The three stages we are talking about are as follows:

In the following sections, we are going to briefly cover what each of these stages mean and why you may or may not need them.