Legito Powerup 2022: Mark Settle, From Evaluation to Adoption: Successful Technology Implementation
Mark Settle is a veteran of the document automation industry. He heads the Legito US operations, and he is a senior Legito consultant. He can draw on many projects to offer tips and tricks for a successful project.
Where to begin?
Successful projects start with product evaluation. This is best done by a team rather than one person. You should include the executive sponsor, your subject-matter experts, and representatives from other teams who might need to support the project (finance, procurement, IT).
Your subject matter experts are the key to developing project requirements and differentiating must-haves from nice-to-haves. Identify specific use-cases, and obtain examples of the documents at the heart of the business process. Go one step further, and think also about your future needs. If you must use tender documents (typically, a request for proposals), keep it simple – Mark reports that RFPs tend to be much less useful than good requirements specs.
Next step
Define your success criteria. It involves more than just meeting the list of requirements. It requires a measurement of ROI, meaning you need a good understanding of the costs. When ready to talk to vendors, narrow quickly the list of potential suppliers. Start with broad research and get to two or three vendors on your shortlist. Don’t forget to ask colleagues and contacts for their experience from projects in other organizations. Get references from comparable customers.
After shortlisting a vendor, put some effort into getting to know the vendor beyond the sales team. Acquaint with their technical resources, talk to the people who would help implement and support the solution, and understand the product release cycles (and the implications for you). Ascertain whether the vendor company looks stable. The objective is to know if you will be comfortable with the vendor team before you decide to go ahead.
Should you begin with a Proof Of Concept? This question arises in most projects, and Mark has seen projects work with or without them. Cloud-based applications like Legito make it much easier to run trial projects. You can do it on your own, but it’s worth reaching out to the vendor. Legito consultants can help you more quickly get what you need from a trial – it’s also an opportunity to get to know the folk whom you might use if you eventually move to a commercial rollout. Have some targeted content ready – they can use it to make a trial more realistic and to understand your needs.
When you implement, start with a simple project. We heard this advice from Mark, but it’s worth noting that we hear the same advice from all the case studies of successful implementations of Legito.
During implementation, be clear about the roles of the team members. The two critical roles (subject matter expert and template author) might be the same person. If different people fill those roles, good communication between those two roles is particularly important.
There will be several cycles of building templates, testing them, and maintaining them over time. Plan for it. Mistakes will be made – don’t plan on everything being right the first time. Documents will evolve, so plan for future maintenance updates too.
If (when) you hit unexpected obstacles, don’t be afraid to ask for help from the vendor. We want your projects to be successful – we know implementations start small and grow – we need to help you do that for the success of all concerned.
Legito Powerup 2022: Mark Settle, From Evaluation to Adoption: Successful Technology Implementation
Mark Settle is a veteran of the document automation industry. He heads the Legito US operations, and he is a senior Legito consultant. He can draw on many projects to offer tips and tricks for a successful project.
Where to begin?
Successful projects start with product evaluation. This is best done by a team rather than one person. You should include the executive sponsor, your subject-matter experts, and representatives from other teams who might need to support the project (finance, procurement, IT).
Your subject matter experts are the key to developing project requirements and differentiating must-haves from nice-to-haves. Identify specific use-cases, and obtain examples of the documents at the heart of the business process. Go one step further, and think also about your future needs. If you must use tender documents (typically, a request for proposals), keep it simple – Mark reports that RFPs tend to be much less useful than good requirements specs.
Next step
Define your success criteria. It involves more than just meeting the list of requirements. It requires a measurement of ROI, meaning you need a good understanding of the costs. When ready to talk to vendors, narrow quickly the list of potential suppliers. Start with broad research and get to two or three vendors on your shortlist. Don’t forget to ask colleagues and contacts for their experience from projects in other organizations. Get references from comparable customers.
After shortlisting a vendor, put some effort into getting to know the vendor beyond the sales team. Acquaint with their technical resources, talk to the people who would help implement and support the solution, and understand the product release cycles (and the implications for you). Ascertain whether the vendor company looks stable. The objective is to know if you will be comfortable with the vendor team before you decide to go ahead.
Should you begin with a Proof Of Concept? This question arises in most projects, and Mark has seen projects work with or without them. Cloud-based applications like Legito make it much easier to run trial projects. You can do it on your own, but it’s worth reaching out to the vendor. Legito consultants can help you more quickly get what you need from a trial – it’s also an opportunity to get to know the folk whom you might use if you eventually move to a commercial rollout. Have some targeted content ready – they can use it to make a trial more realistic and to understand your needs.
When you implement, start with a simple project. We heard this advice from Mark, but it’s worth noting that we hear the same advice from all the case studies of successful implementations of Legito.
During implementation, be clear about the roles of the team members. The two critical roles (subject matter expert and template author) might be the same person. If different people fill those roles, good communication between those two roles is particularly important.
There will be several cycles of building templates, testing them, and maintaining them over time. Plan for it. Mistakes will be made – don’t plan on everything being right the first time. Documents will evolve, so plan for future maintenance updates too.
If (when) you hit unexpected obstacles, don’t be afraid to ask for help from the vendor. We want your projects to be successful – we know implementations start small and grow – we need to help you do that for the success of all concerned.