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What is a Go Live Point for a Spend Analysis Project?

Now I know thats a stupid question for any project manager. As you have a activity list, tasks, milestones, resources in your Microsoft Project, and once that complets in time, with all required resources, in budget - thats a successful project and there is a last step in your plan - GO LIVE. As a PMI certified Project Management Professional myself I agree with you all.

Thats what happened in one of my recent engagement when team reached to that GO LIVE step. Everybody from bottom to top said - Yes we went live - Bravo - congratulations to the team and kudos and lots of good emails. You certainly love when it happens - but should you when its a Spend Analysis project? a BIG NO NO in my opinion. Why ? Because Spend analysis engagement is  not a conventional project. A part of it when you successfully implement and analytical - business intelligence product - is a milestone. Is that a go live point? again answer is NO.

If we  really look at the objective if implemeting any such tool is to get the consolidated visibility across different source systems within the organization, give more teeth and accuracy to your procurement related analysis, make your sourcing decisions focused and streamlined, identify savings and achieve that in a defined timeframe. Now implementing the analytical portal is a very basis baby step in all this cycle.

So what's next logical milestone but quick one to celebrate? Analyzing and identifying low hanging fruits. How one can do that? lets look at the next post - I promise one by thursday this week.

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