Once you start to plan an HCM implementation project, it’s a wise to clear some resourcing related questions out. Do the people participating in the project have other parallel responsibilities? Are there areas in the project that would benefit from outside expertise? Has your project already started, the pace is increasing, project workers are more than fully booked and getting exhausted and perhaps in some areas you are already falling behind the schedule? If you answered “yes” to any of these questions, it might be a perfect time to call in some help.
I have had the privilege to help in customer side roles during our customers' Workday projects. Let me introduce you three important roles I have covered.
As a test manager I created a test strategy for the project and more detailed test plans for each phase including both functional and integration testing. My existing knowledge from both testing and Workday methodology gave a good starting point for this work.
I also gave guidance on how to create test scenarios, monitored the scenario creation, planned how to use the test system, and trained the testers to use it. I followed up on the testing progress and helped mitigate issues when needed.
I feel that the project members appreciated that I was able to offer concrete help in the detailed test scenario creation as well as guide in Workday usage during the testing because Workday was already familiar to me.
In another Workday project I was called in to help when the integrations build was starting to fall behind the schedule. My role as a payroll integrations coordinator was to help to get things on track, start keeping regular status meetings and agreeing on next steps, plan integration testing activities, follow the testing progress, and finally compile the cut-over activities for each integration, and follow the actions until each integration was in production.
In addition to regular weekly follow-up meetings I facilitated several onsite workshops and testing days/weeks where we, together with an integration lead, testers, a third party responsible and an integration consultant, went through questions and issues raised from testing to catch up the implementation schedule.
My third customer side role in a Workday project was an HCM core stream lead. Because I was already familiar with the Workday HCM Core functionalities I could concentrate on making sure that the customer-specific requirements were taken into consideration. I worked closely with the customer’s HR process owner to make sure that the decisions done during the project were in line with the internal requirements.
Because I knew the system already, I felt that I was able to bring extra value for the project in creating the test scenarios, leading and giving support for the stream testers, supporting integration testing and planning the data catch up activities.
When the project go-live approached, I started to work closely with the person who took over the HCM Core stream lead responsibility after the go-live. During these couple of months, we started solving issues and small development requests together while sharing my Workday and project knowledge.
Finally, I want to make one thing very clear, I would not have been able to succeed in my role without the excellent collaboration with the customer team. The most vital thing in getting the work done is co-operation with the customer side stakeholders: project manager, stream leads, HR process owners, integration owners/leads, project members, testers, third-party project providers, and integration system vendors. I enjoyed working with you all; I hope you feel the same.
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Mira is a Lead HCM Solution Consultant with a comprehensive HR process and HR IT system consulting background. In HR solution side she is specialized in HCM Core area in which she has experience in several technologies and global customer project implementations. In a project she has an ability to act in a variety of roles both on consultant and customer side with a motto "Let's get things done".