Steps in a Successful Pilot Project

• Begin with a statement of goals based on the business purpose that is driving the project. It should include an understanding of how the initial phase--whether called a pilot or not--fits into the total effort. Key stakeholders must be involved now.
  
  
• Take a first cut. Develop an implementation plan and solution scenarios, and build prototypes. Use this phase to create a team with a single-minded purpose and to discover where people still disagree over the business problem or goals of the project.
  
  
• Do a full-fledged design. This involves spelling out the business rules that drive the process--a tedious but essential step. The design has two components: the user design, making sure you have all the scenarios identified, and the technical design, which should be an iterative process. About halfway through the design phase, the technical people pretty much take over and bang out details, but they should be always checking back with the end users and business-side owners.
  
  
• From all of this, devise a project plan and budget. Get approval of them before going further.
• Next comes the construction phase. During this stage it's important to have weekly meetings of the stakeholders to monitor status and make decisions. Begin communicating with, demonstrating for and training the broader user community before the system is completed.
  
  
• Institute user testing. During this phase, the end users get deeply involved again. Let them bang away on the system and determine whether it does what they said it should do. This stage is over when the system stabilizes from the usability standpoint and when the customer is comfortable that it meets business needs.
  
  
• The pilot is over when the system is in the users' hands and the business transformation begins.
  
  
• Conduct a post mortem, talking to users, business managers, developers and development managers. Evaluate the lessons learned to improve procedures as you move forward.