Pre-study – Document management project with requirements and taxonomy

Problem

The client wanted to retain documents from the existing systems and at the same time be able to build a new one with a stronger resilience with regard to changes. The customer could not sort out what information was of importance and therefore wanted to transfer all documents and files to the new system.

Solution

Athena Solutions were given the assignment to perform a pre-study and created a plan with requirements and objectives for the project. The assignment also included an analysis of the old systems and the development of information architecture (taxonomy) in cooperation with the client. We developed a prototype for the system with a so called proof-of-concept migration to ensure our plan would actually work in reality.

Result

The pre-study resulted in a test migration of documents/ information, a requirement specification, a taxonomy specification and a project plan that could be built upon further in the next project phase.

Pre-study – requirements and project investment

Problem

The client (> 50 000 employees) needed more information to be able to decide on an investment for a larger document management project with several global business units involved.  The report had to include a budget and a comprehensive project.

Solution

Athena Solutions coordinated and managed several business units and other stakeholders. In this assignment Athena created the following basis for decision together with the client:
•    Benefits framework – a framework showing actual business value each unit and stakeholder would benefit from a new system.
•    Scope statement – to gain control of the project’s magnitude, what documents, processes and units that should be included. We developed a framework to collect information from the business units involved. The scope statement was partly based upon the results from the taxonomy specification and the existing system architecture.
•    Project budget – we estimated costs for purchase of licenses and hardware, and the cost for internal- and external resources separated into operating and capital expenditures. The budget contained various alternatives for possible scenarios.
•    Project plan – a comprehensive project plan with different phases and time tables for all business units were developed. The plan was focused on a fast roll out and execution based partly on parallelization and the creation of a task group that could quickly take on new business units and countries.
•    Existing system landscape – as a basis for other work, Athena developed and summarized the existing system landscape to visualize needs for migration and also as a basis to decide on how urgent each part was.
•    Taxonomy specification – together with the business units Athena held workshops to determine the total need of document management. We created guidelines for use by the business as a support in their decision making process.

Result

The assignment resulted in a solid ground for decision making. The report contained a high-level requirement specification, budget estimates and a roll out plan.

Complete implementation

Problem

The client needed to migrate existing business critical information from several outdated systems into a new one. The project demanded high quality and system validation which is a requirement in the pharmaceutical industry. They also needed new processes for governance of the future system.

Solution

Athena Solutions took on the whole assignment from vision to implementation. We:
•    Created a business case to justify the budget
•    Created a requirement specification
•    Created Information architecture for how to manage the documents. We aimed for a taxonomy that was easy to understand for end users and relatively resilient and possible to change.
•    Implementation – Athena managed configuration and customization of the new system. Migration was done by using a so called delta-technique, where data can be migrated while the old system is still running and when system transition occurs it is possible to stop for a shorter period and perform test and validation before opening up for users.
•    System validation was performed in accordance with GAMP. Athena was responsible for validation and risk assessment. The documentation exceeded 2000 pages, which in turn enabled a release with very few bugs and problems.
•    Governance plan – Athena wrote many of the processes for maintenance and operation (Standard Operating Procedures). We also created a high level governance plan based on best practices from ITIL.
•    Education – Athena developed educational material and held courses for super users, technicians and administrators.
The project methodology used was based on methods such as PPS and Scrum.

Result

Two old systems were migrated more or less free of bugs (<5 bugs) into the new system. Through controlled change management new releases have already been made in the new document management system.