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Data Conversion Essay

2 - Stakeholder Identification and Team Composition

By Thibault Dambrine

By nature, a conversion project will involve multiple stakeholders and even more than likely teams of stakeholders, all of which are not necessarily obvious.
One challenge I experienced in particular, is that some individuals are reluctant to become stakeholders in a conversion, partially because it is extra work, partially because it involves extra responsibilities.

One of the first tasks for the project sponsors is to identify early who will do what in the team.

There will be two broad sub-teams working together to make this happen: The Project Management Team and the Business Teams.

The Project Management Team will effectively run the project. They will be the first to be formed and the last to disband. 

The second team to be involved with be a Business and Solutions tasks. Its composition will literally touch every aspect of the corporation, as data cannot be processed or converted properly without ground-level business knowledge.

Project Management Team

The Project Management Team will be responsible for ensuring the smooth delivery of the project.

·         Sponsorship

·         Timelines,

·         Budgets

·         Risk Identification

·         Signoff and Audit Management

·         Conflict resolution

·         Staffing Clarifying project team member roles

·         Setting team and individual goals

·         Monitoring and measuring team and individual performances

·         Feeding back team and individual performance

·         Resolving conflicts between team members constructively

·         Contributing to ensure the timelines are clear (Gantt charts etc.) and free of conflicts

Business Team Responsibilities

Solution Team Responsibilities

Data Team Responsibilities

Training Team Responsibilities

Responsible for:

·         Helping define scope of data to extract as well as the specifics of the data cleanup activities.

·         Work with the Training team to ensure the training material will facilitate the transition Participate in the creation of the Data Quality Specification (DQS) for each table to cleanup, with a focus on the Business requirements

·         Participate in the creation of the Data Conversion Approach documents (DCA) for each table to convert, with a focus on the Business requirements

Responsible for:

·         Ensuring the new software solution will satisfy the client requirements.

·         Make adjustments or customizations where necessary.

·         Ensuring interfaces and data flows in and out of the old system are re-connected to the new system.

·         Work with the Training team to ensure the training material will facilitate the transition

·         Participate in the creation of the Data Conversion Approach documents (DCA) for each table to convert, with a focus on the Business requirements

 

 

Responsible for:

·         Participate in the creation of the Data Quality Specification (DQS) for each table to cleanup, with a focus on the Business requirements

·         Implement the data cleanup,as per the signed off DQS documents

·         Participate in the creation of the Data Conversion Approach documents (DCA) for each table to convert, with a focus on the Business requirements

·         Maintenance of the ETL Staging Environment

·         Creating Extract/Transform/Load (ETL) programs and working with the Business

 

Responsible for:

·         Assembling a training curriculum appropriate for each module of the software, each level of user, with an emphasis on the transition and mapping from the old system to the new

·         Documentation and manuals

·         Delivery of the training at all levels

·         Work with the Training team to ensure the training material will facilitate the transition

 


 

Must haves and challenges at this point:

·         Strong, executive level sponsorship

·         Strong project management team

·         Clear view of what needs to be accomplished, success criteria

·         Clear understanding of who will do what

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