Best Practices for a Successful Upgrade

Upgrading software can be complex and requires process and planning, along with the appropriate number of resources. Major upgrades can be disruptive and involve change to an organization’s people and processes. Such change is even more pronounced if your organization is several major releases behind. Colorado Access will share their experience moving from 4.99 to G8.

Transcript

1. Best Practices for a Successful Upgrade Debbie Rieger Colorado Access
2. Best Practices for a Successful Upgrade
3. 3 Best Practices for Upgrade Timing • Quarterly or semi-annual Upgrades that are 1 release behind unless there is a specific feature needed • Never more than 1 major release behind • Be ahead of the Vendor: they should never be sun setting the version that you are on which forces you to into an upgrade • As needed, take patches between upgrades for compliance related items and critical defects
4. 4 Best Practices for Upgrade Timing What May Happen When You Don’t Upgrade Regularly • You are out of Compliance • New feature/functionality in newer system that are implemented that are integrated to outdated systems are restricted because the outdated systems are unable to accept the new feature/functionality • Staff knowledge is in “support mode” only and loses the expertise for the upgrade process • Ability to recruit and retain talented employees is diminished • Vendor costs increase as they are supporting an outdated version of their system • Vendor knowledge of the outdated version is lost which impacts their ability to resolve issues in a timely manner and could increase downtime • Upgrade process is much longer due to the number of changes
5. 5 Best Practices for Upgrade Project Management Senior Project Manager
6. 6 Best Practice for Quality Assurance (QA)
7. 7 Best Practices for Quality Assurance (QA) • Plan, Test Early, Test Often – Help to ensure that “bugs” are found early on in the development lifecycle • Utilize existing test documentation • Engage in continuous testing whenever possible • Report Bugs effectively • Test outside the box • Allocate Time appropriately
8. 8 Best Practices for Quality Assurance (QA) • Transparent Communications • Share Knowledge • Offer Feedback • Dedicated QA resources/team • QA goal is to deliver Quality error free code/applications on time • Continuous learning – The QA team should strive to always be updated on the latest testing methodologies, practices and procedures.
9. 9 Best Practices for Upgrades The majority of failures of an upgrade can be prevented by planning, understanding the scope and the cost of internal resource commitment Project Constraints Time Scope Cost
10. 10 Best Practices for Upgrades • Set realistic expectations • Involve, listen and over-communicate • Move away from customization • Separate Training Environment • Marketing Campaign
11. 11 Best Practices • Flowchart for current state need to be kept in place and updated • Flowcharts during a release need to be developed for future state • Form a cross-functional Application Governance team of IT and business people who are responsible for each module Application Governance Committee Business IT BI/Analytics
12. 12 Best Practices
13. 13 Colorado Access (COA) Road to Upgrade “The Scream” Upgrading software from one version to the next appears like a small step? After all, you’re not ripping the stuff out and replacing it… You’re just improving it a little bit!
14. 14 Colorado Access (COA) Road to Upgrade • COA had never done an upgrade to Altruista • 4.99 to G8 November 2017
15. 15 Colorado Access (COA) Road to Upgrade • Communication • Building excitement-marketing campaign
16. 16 Colorado Access (COA) Road Lessons Learned Resources both COA and Altruista • Resource allocation • Personnel hours • Team continuity
17. 17 Colorado Access (COA) Road Lessons Learned Requirements management
18. 18 Colorado Access (COA) Road Lessons Learned Project Management • Project risk management • Training goals • Collaboration and coordination-version control
19. 19 COA Testing Lessons Learned • Limit Testing process- User Acceptance Testing • Limited integration testing • Did not go through the currently established QA process
20. 20 Colorado Access (COA) Road Lessons Learned • Reports • Customization lost
21. 21 Best Practices versus COA Best Practice Marketing Campaign Senior Project Manager Workflows current and future state Update no more than 1 version behind Robust QA testing process Scope (clear requirements) Application Governance
22. 22 “The system upgrade has been a huge improvement of our workflows and the organization of documentation in Care Management. It is a very usable system that our staff enjoy. The upgrade was very rocky at the beginning but once we had better communication and documentation and processes now G8 on a scale of 0-10 it would be a 9 or 10.” Andrea Richter COA Manager, CM
23. 23 Questions