Delivery Procedure

Note: This is just a template for Partners to have a documented implementation process within their company for their Frappe Business vertical.

1. Purpose

To establish a consistent and scalable implementation process for partner companies offering ERPNext or Frappe-based solutions.

2. Implementation Team

The implementation team should be composed of:

• Project Manager
• Project Consultant
• Developer

Project Manager: Project Manager is responsible for ensuring project implementation as per the customer’s goal. Project Manager does (minimal) weekly review of project, and communicates project status internally and with the customer. Also, Project Manager is a point of contact to handle customer issues and escalations.

Project Consultant: Consultant is a key person driving the implementation, ensuring data migration, requirement understanding and documentation, user training, conducting UAT, getting sign-off and taking customer live.

Project Developer: Based on the customer’s requirements of features which needs customisation, a Project Developer takes-up development work. A requirement is signed-off by the customer already, then only a developer starts working on it. Once a feature is developed, it’s handed over to Consultant and then Customer for the first round of testing, and finalisation.

3. Implementation Process Overview

The Implementation process is structured into the following stages: 

1. Project Kick Off

• Establish a team comprising required expertise to execute the project based on the requirements.
• Explain the role and responsibilities of each team member clearly to avoid conflict of interest.
• Before commencing the project formally, organize a formal kick off meeting with the concerned stakeholders at customer's end.
• Discuss scope of work, estimated timeline, team structure and responsibilities, commercial obligations, review cadence clearly to ensure complete alignment with customer expectations.

2. Process Mapping

• Have a template ready for mapping the existing processes followed by the customer.
• Identify and document any deviations in the processes with respect to the template.
• Prepare a plan to work on the gaps between the existing state and future state.

3. Project Champion

• Identify the project champion from the customer’s end who will act as a single point of contact.
• The project champion will be responsible for managing people at customer’s end and encouraging change management. 

4. Project Planning

• Create a detailed project plan with deliverables, timelines and ownership and share with customers.
• Ensure that a folder is maintained for each Project and all the data received and shared with the customer is maintained in a common place.

5. Project Tracking

• Establish a system for managing project progress along with the relevant data.
• Depending on the need of the project type, create reusable project templates to avoid duplication of efforts.
• Feel free to use an appropriate tool for identifying and maintaining relevant tasks along with their estimated timeline.
• Avoid using excel spreadsheets for performing this activity as much as possible.

6. Task Management

• Split the overall scope of work into smaller tasks for better tracking and management.
• Assign an owner and estimated timeline to each task.
• Monitor for delays proactively and analyze root cause as needed.
• Track customization and development tasks separately with accurate estimates.
• Keep the customer informed of tasks assigned to their team.

7. Progress Review

• Establish a formal cadence with the customer to regularly share project progress and updates.
• Share timesheets with customers for maintaining transparency.
• Keep the progress logs recorded in the system for future reference.

8. Go Live Plan

• Prepare a detailed Go-live plan with customers along with a timeline.
• Help customers switch to ERPNext from their legacy system in a systematic manner.

9. Post Go Live Phase

• When a project goes live, have a plan ready for the hypercare phase in which you may experience a surge of enquiries and unforeseen support issues.
• This step is critical to keep customer trust in you before the project is officially handed over to the support team.

10. Customer Sign Offs

• Once the concerned people at customer’s end are trained on relevant modules, get a confirmation from the customer to avoid any conflict in the future.
• Once all the requirements are handled on the staging site, get confirmation from the customer that the system is working as expected and no part of the requirements is pending.
• Once you observe that the project is stabilised, request a go-live sign off from the customer as a confirmation that the project is officially live and stable.

11. Post Implementation Feedback

• Once the go live sign off has been received from the customer, make sure that you are capturing  their feedback against a few parameters which will help you gauge customer satisfaction.

12. Implementation Analysis

• Design a dashboard on Frappe Insights or any other reporting tool to visualise and track important KPIs related to the implementation cadence.
• Analyse implementation data such as project completion status, task completion status, team efficiency, customer feedback etc.

13. Management Review

• Set up a cadence for reviewing the matrix defined in the dashboard along with key team members.
• Try to gain vital insights from the data and take data driven decisions (proactive/ reactive) based on the need.
• Keep the findings and action items recorded for future reference.