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Introducing new software to your team is often a complex process that requires thorough planning. Resource management software is no different. Use these questions to think through your implementation plan before introducing 10,000ft to your team. Visit 10000ft.com/reference for more information.
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Questions Before Implementing Resource Management Software
Implementation Planning
To help you roll out 10,000ft successfully, we’ve prepared a series of questions to help you think through your implementation plan. Use them to guide your thinking before introducing 10,000ft to your team.
Goals
What do you want to get out of 10,000ft?
What prompted your organization to look for a solution like 10,000ft?
How will your company improve after this problem is solved?
What will 10,000ft be used for?
Companies have different needs that motivate them to look for a tool like 10,000ft. Make sure you can clearly communicate the problem 10,000ft will help you solve and how it will fit in to your workflow.
Setup & Standards
Additional Reading: Permission Levels
What information do you want your team to see?
What types of information do various members of your team need?
How will you control that with permission levels?
Does your company have standardized project phases?
You can set these in account settings for easy selection when creating new projects.
Additional Reading: Phases
Does your company have project templates?
If you have consistency in your project structure, you can create templates ahead of time for your team to use when setting up new projects.
Additional Reading: Project Templates
Will you track projects based on time, currency or both?
You set budgets per project, but at a high level, what progress indicators are important to your business?
Additional Reading: Budgets
What policy or rules might you have around schedule changes?
Will anyone be allowed to edit the schedule? Is this responsibility designated to project/resource managers? How will team members request changes to the schedule?
How will you use tags in 10,000ft?
Tags add increased customization to your search and filtering criteria, and help you organize your portfolio. Sample people tags could be team member skills or areas of expertise (like graphic design, jQuery, or baking cupcakes). Sample project tags could be categories like website redesign or wearables.
Additional Reading: Tags
Do you use bill rates?
Depending on your business, you may or may not rely on bill rates to provide budget data. If you do, what roles and disciplines (and corresponding rates) are needed for the bill rate matrix?
Additional Reading: Bill Rates
Do your bill rates vary based on project, client or activity?
Knowing when your bill rates will change will help create standards around new projects. You can create templates for certain project types that bill at a rate different from your default settings.
Operations
Who will use 10,000ft at your company?
Will everyone be responsible for tracking time, or will 10,000ft be a tool for your project managers to manage the plan and assignments?
Who will create new projects? Who will add Leave?
It is a good idea to have a designated person(s) responsible for creating projects and leave types. Assign these responsibilities early on.
Additional Reading: Creating Projects
At what stage will you create new projects?
If you are bidding on a project, does it go in as a tentative project right away, or do you wait until you win the job before adding it? Having a policy will help avoid duplicate entries.
Who will adjust the schedule in 10,000ft?
Depending on your company, it might be a good idea to have a gatekeeper who handles schedule changes and is responsible for keeping the schedule balanced. If changes need to be made, who do team members submit change requests to?
Additional Reading: Schedule Overview
What is each person responsible for in 10,000ft?
Team Members might only be responsible for tracking their time, but when should their time be confirmed? If the schedule shows someone overbooked, whose responsibility is it to adjust that person’s assignments?
What are some frequently needed reports you might use?
Budget status by project? 30-day revenue forecast? Monthly utilization of billable time? Create these reports ahead of time and save them to your dashboard.
Additional Reading: Report Types
Adjustments & Implementation
What tools or processes will 10,000ft replace?
One of the benefits of 10,000ft is that it often combines multiple tools you already use into one. Identify the tools that are being replaced and communicate that to your team.
Do you need to integrate 10,000ft with your accounting system?
The longer you use 10,000ft, the more valuable the data in it becomes. Do you need to export that data to your accounting system? How does that process work?
Additional Reading: QuickBooks Integration
Do you require integration with any other business tools?
What other tools does your business use that could increase in value when integrated with 10,000ft?
Additional Reading: API Overview
How are you going to introduce 10,000ft to your company?
Will you hold a company meeting to introduce the tool and new procedures? A group screening of the demo video could be a good way to introduce 10,000ft to everyone. Also, send them links to the onboarding section for more information.
Additional Reading: Onboarding Resources
Visit 10000ft.com/reference for more information or email [email protected] with specific questions. Happy Big Picture Planning!
