Key Highlights
- Go-live readiness means making sure employees can carry out crucial tasks on their own instead of just completing the training.
- Employees should practice real-world workflows, build confidence and prove their competency before go-live.
- Organizations can make better go/no-go decisions using evidence-based readiness which helps them eliminate performance gaps before they impact operations.
- Measuring workflow pass rates by role helps find skill gaps and the preparation needed before go-live.
Introduction
Every significant software rollout has a point when the project team starts questioning, ‘Are we ready to launch?’. The answer comes from a long checklist. It moves data. Tests of integration have been conducted. UAT is over. Cutover plans are accepted. Support staff are informed. So, approval is given to the project. However, there is still one query that determines what will happen on the first day of launch: Can users truly perform their tasks on the new system? This aspect of go-live readiness is hard to quantify.
Even when a system is technically ready, workers may find it difficult to do the necessary tasks. Without demonstrating that users can work independently, training completion rates can be high. Additionally, an organization’s overall readiness score may appear good while a specific position, area, or business unit is still unprepared. Therefore, true preparedness must encompass more than just technology. It requires proof that the people, procedures, and systems are prepared to carry out the work. This is where a practical readiness assessment shifts the discussion.
Check for Go-Live Readiness with these 5 Questions
Program managers can organize go-live preparedness around five questions rather than asking if all project tasks have been finished:
1. Is everything set up?
The majority of programs already measure this aspect well. Have the integrations and data undergone validation? Has the UAT been finished? Do access controls operate? Is the idea for cutover tested? Can a rollback be made? Are there resources for support? These controls are vital. However, they simply prove that the system can be started by the organization. They don’t prove that workers can utilize it efficiently.
2. Are the business procedures ready?
Rarely does a new program change the screen. It can alter the order of work across several apps, as well as approvals, handoffs, duties, exception pathways, and data needs.
This means that preparedness must take into account the entire workflow rather than just the proper operation of particular screens. For instance, to finish a single transaction, a finance person could have to switch between an ERP, approval workflow, reporting application, and another business system. A single application test may not always indicate that employee is capable of doing the entire task.
3. Are the users prepared?
The two questions that training completion cannot answer by itself:
- Can the employee complete the workflow?
- Has the team finished the course?
Similarly, current go-live readiness guidelines separate training completion from user readiness and concentrate on whether employees are capable of carrying out crucial tasks in practical working situations. This difference is crucial for a program leader. It would be hard to defend labeling an accounts payable team as “ready” if they have finished all of their training but only 78% of them are able to independently perform a crucial payment sequence.
4. Is support prepared?
In the initial days of a new system, even well-prepared users will come across unfamiliar circumstances. The organization requires floor support, help resources, clear escalation procedures, and a strategy for spotting persistent issues. This is where the relationship between hypercare and pre-go-live preparation becomes important. Surviving launch day is not the only objective. The goal is to reduce the time between initial use and self-assured, independent performance.
5. Does the evidence support a go or no-go decision?
This query brings everything together. Having green ticks on a readiness assessment is not the only answer. Leadership should be informed about the following:
- What roles are prepared?
- Which important workflows are prepared?
- Which cohorts don’t meet the threshold?
- Where do users make mistakes?
- What is the solution?
- What risks still exist?
- The choice belongs to who?
That is how measuring preparedness differs from recording readiness.
The Measurement that Counts Critical Workflow Pass Rate
A measure is required if user preparedness is to affect a go/no-go decision. Critical workflows pass rate is the best place to start. What do you meant by it? The percentage of users in a role cohort that can accurately and independently finish a necessary workflow in a test, simulation, or pilot environment prior to go-live is known as the critical workflow pass rate.
Why Prefer Roles to Measure?
Since risk can be hidden by organizational averages. Consider the following four main user groups in an ERP rollout:
Role Cohort | Critical Workflow Pass Rate | Status |
Accounts Payable | 94% | Green |
Accounts Receivable | 89% | Amber |
Procurement | 96% | Green |
Customer Service | 73% | Red |
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The program may appear to be healthy based on an aggregate average. However, it is evident that procurement users are more prepared than customer service users. That is important, if their workflows are crucial to their business. Therefore, readiness should be divided by role and, in cases where workflows vary, by business unit, access type, geography, or another significant cohort.
What Qualifies as a Pass in Go-Live Readiness?
The real standard needed for the position should be reflected in a pass. Depending on the workflow, that may consist of:
- Finishing the appropriate process path
- Accurately entering the necessary data
- Observing required permission or compliance procedures
- Managing anticipated exceptions
- Finishing the process without the assistance of a trainer or SME
- Reaching a predetermined time or accuracy threshold
- Preventing crucial mistakes
The threshold should also reflect risk. Compared to a low-risk administrative operation, a high-risk financial or compliance workflow might need a greater pass rate. Instead of depending on a single successful effort, the provided content architecture suggests adding repeatability and setting workflow limits based on business risk. The key idea is straightforward: if setting the threshold causes the dashboard to become green, do not do so. Set it because the operational risk is acceptable.
Why Completing Training Is Not the Correct End Point?
Completing training is still beneficial. It indicates where there are participation gaps, whether participants were reached, and whether assigned learning was finished. Treating completion as evidence of preparedness is the issue.
It is possible for someone to pass a knowledge test, finish a training module, and comprehend the navigation without being able to manage the workflow when an unforeseen circumstance arises. Seldom is actual work as neat as a training demonstration. A user may come across:
An absent field
An unexpected route to approval
An exception
An unsuccessful transaction
An alternative level of authorization
A handoff across systems
An unfamiliar procedure decision
Therefore, preparedness must assess performance rather than just exposure.
Go-Live Readiness Assessment template
An Improved Way of Developing the Readiness Assessment
Hundreds of elements are not necessary for a practical go-live readiness checklist. Start with the following most important tasks:
Step 1: Determine the Crucial Processes
Don’t try to evaluate every feature in the program. Determine which workflows are critical to day-one operations. Give priority to the following processes:
- Elevated volume
- Revenue-related and customer-facing
- Sensitive to compliance
- Significant financially
- Heavy on exceptions
- New or significantly altered
- Reliant on several systems
Order-to-cash, procure-to-pay, record-to-report, inventory, payroll, and other organization-specific procedures could be included in an ERP rollout.
Step 2: Assign them to Role Groups
Next, determine who carries out each workflow. Several roles may be involved in a single procedure. For instance, procure-to-pay may entail:
Buyer → Requester → Approver → Finance → Accounts Payable
Every role has a distinct set of duties. As a result, each requires a distinct readiness test. This avoids the frequent error of considering “the organization” as a single population of learners.
Step 3: Establish the Pass Criteria
Decide what constitutes successful performance for each crucial workflow. For instance:
“The AP user is responsible for processing the invoice, resolving the defined exception, completing the necessary approval steps, and completing the workflow on their own.”
There’s something quantifiable now.
Step 4: Practice before the actual job starts
Simulation has become especially useful in this situation. Workers need a place where they can make mistakes without having an impact on clients, live transactions, financial records, or downstream procedures.
Instead of producing static screenshots, Assima’s current systems training platform generates interactive, editable simulations. In a realistic setting, users can interact with fields, menus, buttons, and workflows. This allows organizations to go beyond training that is centered on demonstrations. The work is actually doable by users.
Step 5: Evaluate instead of observing
Practice is insufficient. Eventually, stop giving instructions and letting the student finish the process on their own. The preparedness evaluation takes on significance at this point. A user has not shown the same level of preparedness as one who can traverse the process on their own if they can only finish it by following detailed directions.
Step 6: Examine user failures
A pass rate indicates the cohort’s readiness. Why the others aren’t can be explained by step-level data. Assima’s object-based methodology enables training materials to be updated as applications evolve, and its systems training platform facilitates tracking and interactive practice. As a result, the remediation cycle becomes more focused:
Determine → Practice → Evaluate → Examine → Correct → Reevaluate
The Readiness Model for Your Upcoming Rollout
Six steps can be used to summarize a practical model:
Define: Determine the crucial role of cohorts and workflows.
Set: Create pass criteria based on risk.
Practice: Provide a realistic, secure setting for users to work in.
Measure: Determine the key workflow pass rate for each role.
Remediate: Focus on the real gaps using performance data.
Make a decision based on the evidence. With this concept, readiness evaluation becomes a continuous process rather than a final project activity. Additionally, it might begin sooner than many organizations anticipate. Assima’s current rollout guidelines specifically encourage the creation of training materials from incomplete systems, enabling organizations to begin user preparation prior to the finalization of the production environment.
Ready to Measure User Readiness?
Assima assists organizations in preparing staff for go-live while with realistic, interactive software simulations offering a means of practicing crucial workflows and evaluating proficiency prior to users entering production.
Discover how your company can transition from training completion to quantifiable user readiness by using Assima’s Systems Training Platform.
Measure readiness, not completion. Book a demo and see who’s actually go-live ready.
Frequently Asked Questions
Let’s Answer Some of Your Questions.
Both the labor and the system needs to b
e ready for go-live. Instead of only completing prescribed training, users should be able to correctly and independently perform crucial workflows.
Determine the crucial workflow pass rate per role cohort, which is the proportion of users who can accurately and independently finish necessary workflows in a realistic test or simulation.
Participation is measured by training completion. Even after completing training, users may still find it difficult to deal with actual processes, exceptions, or production demands. Demonstrated performance is necessary for readiness.
The percentage of users in a role cohort that successfully finishes a necessary process accurately and without help in comparison to a predetermined benchmark is known as the critical workflow pass rate.
Assima allows staff members to safely rehearse crucial operations prior to production by using realistic software simulations. Organizations can use evidence to support go/no-go decisions, evaluate competency, and pinpoint performance gaps.
