Since moving to New York City everyone thinks all I do is shop! Although this is partly true, I have also been working hard and speaking to a number of people in the Workday ecosystem, all at different stages of deployment, some still considering Workday as their as HCM, and others in full swing of projects and adding new modules.
So with this in mind I have put together some insights to help you have a Happy New Year and a Happy Workday implementation process:
Know your organization! It might seem obvious, but by assessing the impact that implementing Workday will have on your business you can save a lot of time and money. Take the time to understand thoroughly who is involved and who will be affected by the deployment of Workday: people, departments, processes and technology must be considered ad – don’t forget – that legal and regulatory concerns will differ by country if this is a global project.
Have strong governance. For quick decision making and issue resolution have an empowered project stakeholder to implement well defined governance structures. Understand the key tasks, deliverables and associated dependencies required for successful delivery. If this is a global deployment, make sure each impacted region (or business) is appropriately represented at key governance meetings.
Build the team. (Call me!) Make sure you know when your team will be required and plan appropriately, Workday projects often fall into trouble due to issues with availability of required specialist talent. Key stages such as Design, Customer Confirmation, Testing and Go-Live require certain skillsets, so know your resources and availability in advance. Phases such as training, data and testing can overlap so it’s important to plan for this too.
Know your data. The system will only be as good as the data that is stored in it, so it’s important to know your company’s data in order to make decisions on how best to utilize Workday. Think about the data in terms of the fields it will be housed in, the business processes it will be a part of, the third-party systems that will use it, and the reporting needs of the organization. Work with your Business Owners and IT teams to identify sources of data and assess their quality early.
Time for testing. Planning and executing a high-quality test strategy will save you in the long run. Key areas for testing should be data, core organization design, business processes, integrations and Security. Invest in assigning a test manager to manage the process, integrations require technical knowledge as well as time to build and test. It is critical to know all the data touch points and system exchanges that are required up front in order to avoid surprises during the project.
Partyyyyy! Welcome Workday. Now that the party and implementation is over know how you will manage and maintain your Workday solution post go-live from the start of your project. This will inform your strategy around roll-out, training, resourcing, design and help manage any faults. Don’t forget to celebrate every milestone and keep the team empowered, engaged and excited throughout the implementation. No doubt the team would have been working to their limits to make the Workday implementation successful.
If you have led or experienced a Workday implementation I would love to hear about your experience! What do you wish you had known then? What would you do differently if you did it again? Were there specific resources or skills that you required for successful deployment, what were they and why?
Hopefully this proves helpful! Here’s to a Happy New Year! And Happy New Workday!
