You’ve done your research, compared different Enterprise Resource Planning Systems, and you’ve decided to implement Workday to transform your business. What now? What should you expect as it pertains to your project teams? There are 4 key phases to understand on your Workday journey: the Readiness Phase, Workday’s 4 (or 5) Stage Methodology, Production Services and Phase X. While it’s important to understand each of these phases, what’s also important is understanding how resource needs will impact the success of your implementation.
A successful Workday implementation starts at the beginning with the right preparation and planning during the readiness phase. This is where your internal team will find a Workday Advisory Partner, or an independent resource and they will guide you through this important phase.
Once you have assembled your business owners (or subject matter experts), your advisor will help you organize your plan. Some areas to consider would be evaluating current business processes and which ones need to change, defining your current pain points, decisions around data, how this will impact your current IT team and determining the best business intelligence tools for your business.
Overall, you will be looking at your business processes that you have today, decide if they will still work in Workday, and see if there are any improvements you can make to your current process to help maximize the benefits. A few positions to consider here are Workstream Leads, Project Managers, Change Management, Trainers, Functional Subject Matter Experts, Architects, Workday Architects to build integrations and provide advice, resources to extract data, Testing Leads and a plan to support legacy roles.
The second phase of implementing Workday will be working through the resources needed during Workday’s 4-Stage Methodology: Planning, Architect & Configuration, Test and Deploy. The pool of resources will come from three main areas: your implementation partner, internal employees who have previous Workday experience or an outside consultant who specializes in Workday.
For example, the most requested roles we receive are Customer-side Project Managers or Customer-side Program Managers that have experience implementing Workday. You might have plenty of Project Managers, but finding the right talent with Workday experience is key. Or you might have the right talent with Workday and Project Management experience but who will fill the gap of their current position when they move to the implementation team? Another option is to bring in integrations resources, allowing the internal team to participate in the process and cutting some costs in the process.
After you’ve deployed and you’ve had the recommended 8-weeks of Hypercare to make sure all documentation, knowledge transfer, and critical needs have been supported, you enter what we call stabilization. This phase typically lasts until around 6 months after go-live. There is typically a higher demand for resources here, so it’s important to budget for that in your plan at the beginning. They will be working on things missed during the implementation, items that are not working properly, processes you thought would work and now need to be tweaked and lastly, you will go through your first Workday update during this phase.
Having resources that have been through an update is definitely a benefit during this stage. Your Production Services partner will be valuable in helping you optimize your platform. For more specialized improvements, bringing in a consultant with certain expertise might be the way to go. Once stabilization is reached, you will be on day-to-day support and will be ready for your next chapter on your Workday journey.
During the Phase X stage, you will be adding on additional functionalities. For example, you implemented Human Capital Management, Time Tracking Absence, and Payroll and now you want to implement Talent and Recruiting. You might need to bring in a Functional expert to help you and key stakeholders with those additional functionalities and implementations.
Implementing Workday will be a process that will come in stages, both technically and staffing wise. It’s important that you prepare during the beginning and plan (and budget) for your hiring needs over the course of your journey, so you are prepared for each phase.
If you are beginning your Workday journey or are a veteran to the ecosystem and are in need of Workday talent, learn more about our Workday staffing capabilities and how we can help. Planet Technology is Workday’s only global staffing partner in North America and the EU and can provide contract and full-time Workday resources and Production Services Support. Not only are we a partner, we are a member of Workday’s PSA Product Advisory Board and Professional and Business Services Board, but we are also a customer with a unique understanding of what it takes to have a successful implementation.
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