What do I get from my Readysell project planning

Owned by John Nairn
Last updated: Jun 09, 2020 by Sharon Harden (Unlicensed)
8 min read


Overview

Some dealers start off not wanting to spend time on Readysell's project planning. Yet it is critical that you take the time to understand the benefits and cost savings you can achieve by sticking to the proven Readysell's standard project plan, designed to help you get peace of mind by achieving the following benefits:

  • Get us all on the same page, align and manage expectations:
    • Readysell can make sure you get the result you expect for the price you expect. You will start off not knowing much about what Readysell will do while having your own expectations about the results you want. Readysell initially will not know what you expect but will know a lot about implementing our software.  The extensive planning work pays off by making sure you, your team and Readysell are on the same page about what is expected and how it will be achieved.
  • Prevent you from running the project on your own:
    • As a business owner, you are used to running the show yourself. The natural approach for many project leaders is to make all the decisions yourself. If you take this approach with the Readysell conversion, things will not go well. Dealers that go their own way with the conversion tend to have the least success. Especially if the project is run "by the seat of your pants". Readysell does this all the time, we need to help you take advice from our expertise
    • We need to make lists of agreed plans to help you understand and take on our advice about how to run the project
    • Agree in advance about any changes you want to the standard install plan. We normally find that each dealer’s experience can broadly fit into our standard conversion project plan. But we need to adjust the plan around the edges to suit individual requirements
  • Show you how to save money by using on-site training, the training documentation and videos:
    • The lazy and most expensive way to complete your implementation is to have Readysell show you how to complete each task individually
    • A better way is to let us show you how to save money by using the training documentation and videos
    • Having Readysell team members on-site has a cost, but can save you money in the long term. It saves as on-site training gets the best result using the least amount of your teams time
  • Avoid unplanned costs by helping you budget for the full cost of the project:
    • Training, equipment, site visits, they all add up
    • By helping you plan a full project budget, we reduce the chance of any surprise bills arriving on your desk
    • We also help you understand the support policy, so you and your team make use of Readysell support without incurring more charges than you need to. Some dealers don't contact Readysell when they could do so without a charge. Believing everything is chargeable is an error. Just as believing no Readysell support will be charged is also an error.
    • We can help you understand what charges and what does not 

To make your project work, it is important that you take the time to understand why we need to complete the following steps:

  • Completing all project engagement work, such as review of initial data import, setup of required equipment, deciding on which sites have their own databases etc.
  • Setting tentative project start date and GL live date, just to frame discussion
  • Project engagement planning
  • Training engagement planning
  • Financials engagement planning
  • Readysell will be regarding you as the project leader for your business, We will nominate your project leader for Readysell


Project engagement

The next few steps from here involve completing the project engagement work so that we can set a start date for the project. I have asked my team to help you with the following steps over the few weeks before the project starts:

  • Set a tentative project start and go live date. We need a start date, when all project engagement is complete and we start to get serious about training etc., needs to be some six to eight weeks before the go-live weekend
  • Our support team is to connect to your server and run our standard internal stage 1 data review. In order to check that the stage 1 data conversion is reasonable
  • Once our support team confirms the stage 1 data conversion is reasonable, they are to:
  • Send you the stage 1 data review checklist and help you understand what is involved completing the checklist. See:
  • Your Readysell 8 project leader needs to explain the “fail-safe implementation methodology” to you. They will also talk to you to ensure you have been sent all of the project documentation, such as the shared priorities checklist and that you understand the purpose of each of the project documents. See:
  • We need to conduct a project engagement meeting. We can do this over the phone or on site:
  • Project engagement can allow us to record all your requirements and show you in outline how Readysell will achieve each of those requirements. The project engagement meeting helps us define your business needs and determine when we might implement various features such as the Mobile App for technicians, advanced warehousing etc. This help us stage the project so that your team moves forward at a steady pace over time without trying to implement too few or too many features at one time. We also do some training during project engagement meetings when they are on site
  • Best practice is to send a staff member from our training team to your site for two days. They can conduct a day and a half of “boot camp training” will give you a great start to the project.  Readysell can give you an estimate of costs
  • A cheaper, but less effective alternative, is for a training team member to phone you and schedule a day when they can work with you over the phone to complete the “Training engagement meeting”.  This will require a few hours of your time. The Readysell training staff member is to explain to you the self-training materials available to you such as our YouTube channel and the training guide.  The Readysell training staff member would have to skip the “boot camp training” part of the project engagement meeting, as we are conducting the session over the phone. See:
  • That same training staff member will then prepare a training plan for you. The training plan outlines the areas of training required for each of your team members. Note, one aim is to keep to a trim training budget, so Sharon will focus on how self-training can help you reduce Readysell training hours. See:
  • Muli-site considerations
    • If you have more than one site. We can have a separate database at each site or one database at the 'main' site and remote connections to the branches
    • One database at a head office with VPN/RDP for Cannonvale is probably a good option. Requires the server at the main site to have sufficient RDP licences
    • A cloud based solution is possible, but generally more expensive based on current technology. A lot of what is said about the cloud is hype. We can do a cloud based solution for you, but it will probably run slower and increase your costs
    • Reaydsell 8 Web client can be used to connect to any location as well with or without a cloud based database
  • Data conversion
    • We complete a first rough data conversion before the project engagement meeting and the start of the project
    • Extracting data from your existing system is done in a number of steps. The first conversion does not have to be perfect, just enough to allow training
    • In the last few weeks before the system goes live, your team have to tidy up the address and contact data
  • Post Implementation

Reducing your costs by firming up your project budget

We don’t want any surprises in regards to costs. So we try to start the project by helping you with budget estimates for all aspects of the project. Readysell handles costs and charges. Readysell needs us to agree on a training and implementation budget, at least in draft form, so that he can estimate costs and charges.


Planning the Readysell on site staff over the course of the project and the training generally follows a standard procedure. We find investing in training before the conversion will help you get the most out of the system and will make the conversion as stress free as possible for you and your customers.


We can’t firm up the budget until the project engagement work above is complete. But just for discussions sake, let’s say you run with one Readysell team member on-site for two days over the conversion weekend. This would result in the following conversion budget:

  • 3 Readysell implementation team days on-site
  • Around 5 hours’ financial implementation assistance. You will need to put quite a bit of effort in to keep the financials implementation assistance down to this level
  •  Around 15 hours remote training and training audit. You have 8 included hours. You will need to do a lot of self-training to keep the remote training to this level


You may get some included training and implementation assistance hours. Those hours can be used on training or on implementation assistance. Such as our support team assisting you by explaining the various checklists with you and helping you review data. John Nairn's time reviewing checklists and data does not count towards the included training and implementation assistance hours, but training, checklists and data review by any of our other team members will count as training and implementation assistance hours.

I would work out the draft budget estimate like the following example (actual on-site days vary for each project) :

  • On-site training and implementation assistance: 


On-site

Total on-site days



Engagement 


Last week before go-live 


Go-live weekend 


Week after go-live 

Engagement visit 

2 days 

2 days 




Main site conversion 

3 days 


0days 

1 days 

2 days 

Second site conversion 

0 days 


0days 

0 days 

0 days 

Education/other sites? 

0 days 


0days 

0 days 

0 days 


  • A Readysell team member on site on site for 2 days perhaps from Sunday to Monday, depending on the agreed go live date
  • Remote training via telephone and screen to screen connections
    • Remote training is charged on a time and materials basis. Expect something like 15 hours 
    • You have a credit for 8 included remote training hours based on Readysell’s special deal for Office Brands dealers 
    • Be aware this is a bit light on remote training hours. Your team will need to rely on a lot of self-training and pick up the training audit feedback quickly to keep to this budget.
    • Financials implementation assistance 
      • Financial implementation assistance is charged on a time and materials basis and normally involves a few hours before go live and can involve days after go live. 
      • Financial assistance is normally provided remotely 
      • Expect something like 5-10 hour in total 
      • Be aware this is a might be bit light on financial assistance hours. Your team will need to pick up the financials quickly and put in quite a bit of their own time to keep to this budget. Ultimately you can do all the financials setup yourself, but investing in some financials implementation assistance will make things a lot easier
    • Ongoing training 
      • You should budget for some 8 hours training per year to help keep your site up to speed with the latest Readysell developments 
      • Sites that don't invest in on-going training don't get the best results for their business.


Over the few weeks before the project starts, we should firm up the project budget discussed above.