Our NHS Property Services team talk proudly of the 18 month project they undertook to introduce this Customer to a new, Azure-based integration layer, using QuickConnect. We were keen to understand why this was such a successful project, and why so many people on the team (Customer, Cluster Reply, Vendors) derived so much satisfaction from it.
Key to the success of this project, was the guiding vision of the Client-side Solution Architect, Kev Canning, who encouraged a ‘fail fast’ attitude early on in the implementation, and provided leadership and belief in what was to all extents and purposes, an abstract solution to envision, when compared with a standard product option.
Kev supported our team’s recommendations, and took ownership of a disciplined, centrally managed documentation repository, Pipeworks, and thereby ensured that vendors adhered to its principles, and insisted that they follow a control process if any APIs were to be changed, or there was deviation from the plan.
We also worked with Kev to ensure that two key vendors, in this case managing the ERP and Property Management applications, were brought on board early with the implementation, which avoided a committee-style environment where too many opinions would lead to project paralysis. Once this initial implementation was completed, we could roll out the implementation to the rest of the vendors with a fixed, tried and test set of protocols which kept the project on track.
We were therefore able to deliver the first release after just 8 months, with 2 further releases over the next 12 months.
It’s easy to underestimate the importance of having someone like Kev on the Customer team; we’ve seen many projects fail when a weak Client is leading the process, where a lack of vision or belief in the delivery team leads to stasis and complication. So we’re always on the look out for new Clients with people like Kev in charge. Thank you Kev, you made it feel easy and enjoyable for the whole team.