Your AMS Journey: Selection to Adoption – Step 6: Define Scope, Evaluate ROI

With the discovery stage complete, you and your staff let out a sigh of relief. The team is happy the implementation is moving along, and members are eagerly anticipating all of the features they expect the new AMS will bring to make their lives easier.

What’s In and What’s Out

As you review the requirements within the discovery documents, you need to decide what is critical to the business. Therefore, the team must evaluate what is in scope and what can be set aside, at least for the moment. Contemplate some of the following as you endeavor to make the decision:

Phasing

It is very common to break the project down into many phases, so you get the project off the ground and a portion implemented quickly while you build other phases as time passes. Let’s discuss some advantages and challenges to consider:

Advantages

• The Board: It took time for the Board to approve the new AMS budget, and now they are impatient and eager to see the results.
• Quick win: The phase 1 budget is obviously lower than the entire project budget, so value can be delivered to the association quicker while the future phases are scheduled. This can sometimes even allow teams to budget across multiple years.
• Iterative learning: Phases provide the association with an opportunity to learn from mistakes and adapt quickly.
• Enthusiasm: Having a good phase 1 implementation creates excitement for the staff around the prospect of a new platform and keeps them engaged and enthusiastic.

Challenges to Manage

• Implementation Fatigue: An AMS implementation takes a lot of effort by the staff to support and keep the daily responsibilities on track. It is common for teams to feel fatigued at the end of phase 1 and need to take a breath. This could impact future phases, resulting in delays.
• Evaluate business-critical functions: Sometimes, in a rush to phase, the necessary due diligence is not done towards ensuring that all the parts of the business have a viable way to operate day 1 within the platform. This includes ensuring that the new AMS supports any dependent functionality that was supported by the legacy AMS.
• Budget: While budget management is crucial in all implementations, managing it well is even more important in a phased project since you want to ensure that future phases are adequately funded.
• Costs more, takes longer: While it may be counterintuitive for some, a phased implementation will cost more than a one time big bang implementation. Every stop and start in an implementation results in repeated tasks, such as user acceptance testing, training, and go-lives.

While the challenges may be daunting, it is still preferable to phase projects, as the advantages overshadow the challenges that could be easily managed with a well-prepared team.