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Initial Considerations of a PeopleSoft Project

By Kathy Martucci, PMP:

Editor’s note: This is the second post in a series about implementing PeopleSoft projects. The first post on whether PeopleSoft is right for your organization can be found here.

Your organization just purchased over $1 million worth of PeopleSoft software licenses and, even if it’s never implemented, contractually owes Oracle for hundreds of thousands of dollars in maintenance fees annually.

NOW WHAT?

As we discussed in the previous blog, any single suite of PeopleSoft (two examples are Supplier Chain Management or Human Capital Management) is a monstrous challenge to implement. And implementing more than one is the definition of an extremely complex project. Talk about replacing all your current systems with PeopleSoft is just crazy talk.

There are important decisions to ponder and determine before cracking the shrink wrap on the software and diving in:

1. Hardware infrastructure and software architecture

  • How many servers of what size(s) does the organization require to offer the type of performance necessary?
  • How many end-users will there be, how many batch processes, how many and what type of transactions?
  • What about redundancy? Need 100% uptime? Automatic failover?  Disaster recovery plans?

Fortunately, Oracle has an entire department dedicated to assisting organizations in sizing their hardware systems for optimum performance. Take advantage of them. Do not underestimate the need for an extremely large and robust infrastructure.

2. Project model

What type of resources and how many are required for the project? It’s a safe bet that, even if your organization has several competent Oracle database administrators and an overabundance of programmers (yeah, right), the organization doesn’t already employ experienced PeopleSoft implementers. That means a competitive bid for outside systems integrators if you’re in the public sector and some heavy duty due diligence about who to hire even if you’re not. Some of the categories of resources necessary are:

  • Systems engineers
  • PeopleSoft functional implementers
  • PeopleSoft programmers
  • PeopleSoft security experts
  • PeopleSoft integrators
  • Business analysts
  • Organizational subject matter experts for each functional area to be implemented
  • Testing experts
  • Project managers
  • Training and communication staff

And that is just the beginning.

3. Project Methodology

All the PeopleSoft implementers use basically the same project life cycle methodology – they just give it their own special brand name in order to differentiate them from their competitors.  The organization should thoroughly understand the project life cycle and the inputs, strategies and outputs of each and every step along the way. Then and only then will the organization and not the contractor be in charge of the project and its processes. If the project management maturity of the organization is relatively low, the very best strategy is to hire a seasoned project manager early in the process.

Conclusion

These are only three out of dozens of potential challenges and questions to be considered.

What will be your organization’s first steps now?

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