Walker said his first and most important challenge was to get executive support for the program of work, which would then allow WindowLogic to allocate and commit resources on a long-term basis. The next step was to tie down operational support and business units right down to commitment from the line managers.
Tauber said this "buy-in at all levels" was essential because the reseller had to obtain executive approval at each project milestone.
"We had to put up a new business case to justify the next step and so on. We had to keep re-justifying the project to ensure it remained pertinent to the business no matter how our business was developing."
Almost half of the three year project was devoted to the initial review and strategy development. Using WindowLogic's methodology, all project activity was divided into three streams: document management, governance and supporting documentation.
Once the strategy had been agreed, the next four months were spent defining issues and requirements followed by another five months which saw the project team design, build and test solutions leading to development of the enterprise model.
The last phase was given over to physical deployment, training and change management.
"We had three deployment teams running. They were each involved in conducting five week programs to set-up, customise and provide training for approximately 100 staff at a time," said Dent.
"There were at least 60 separate work groups to do, all handled one at a time. It was a complex schedule, making sure we had everyone where they needed to be."
Managing expectations
During the final roll-out, minor modifications were made for a number of the work groups as part of a strategy to get user acceptance.
"The customisation was designed to make everyone feel special," said Walker.
"We needed to get the message out to the end user that there was something in it for them, but we still kept all customisation within the boundary of the agreed enterprise model. That's how you keep a project on track."
Another factor to ensure staff cooperation and speedy take-up of eDOCS was that the project team got sign-off from each of the 60 work groups acknowledging that all necessary work had been completed and managers were happy with the solution. Prior to that, the project team audited each department's use of the ECM to show it could use the system.
This process helped to highlight and resolve any problems. It also put an element of control on managers once they had signed their acceptance of the system.
Staff sat through classroom and online training sessions, although the project team's preference was to deliver classroom training wherever possible.
"These types of ECM projects aren't technology projects," added Walker. "You are fundamentally changing the way people work every day and you can't do that by sticking a bit of software on someone's desk."
Walker, Tauber and Dent are all in agreement that the biggest challenge was the cultural change inherent in an ECM deployment.
Rather than saving documents to a local drive, files are now stored centrally and are theoretically accessible to all (although some security restrictions apply depending on the level or position). Standard structures, formatting and cataloguing have replaced the former department-specific practices.
"It's a massive change in the way people work and the way they have to think about the documents and the information they are creating," said Dent.
"This way makes it clear that the information belongs to the Corporation as a whole rather than to individuals or a particular section. That change in attitude is huge."
Tauber added the impact is not so much about a software product or how you use it, it's about creating an environment where people have to change the way they work. For example, staff now spend time and effort saving documents in ways that they didn't have to before.
Twelve months later
While customers may not notice any change, better document and information management practices are delivering noticeable changes and efficiencies in the Corporation's back office. The problems of locating data, sharing information and document version control have all been resolved.
"What we've done is extend the understanding of records management compliance across the Corporation," said Dent.
"We have a single repository where all corporate information goes and any document created now has to be attached to a corporate file. The records management component of the solution applies life cycle management to the documents so that each and every corporate file has retention and disposal policies attached to it."
The solution has also benefited the Corporation's email system.
"There is very little sent around the organisation now that is actually a document. People send references or links to documents instead. This has had two impacts. Firstly, it means that our mailboxes are considerably smaller," said Tauber.
He cites the example of a social club email which was issued as a link to a document in the eDOCS system earlier that day. Before, the email might have been a page or more of text issued to members' internal email accounts.
"The second benefit," added Tauber, "is that if you only send a reference, you can be sure that everyone is accessing the same version of the document."
Walker is confident that the hardest part of the project is now over but said there will be more work for the internal team in the year or so ahead.
"They've met the goals and objectives that they set out to achieve, but enterprise content management is a journey," he said.
"There's no finish date because business needs and demands will always evolve. I think the Water Corporation is in the enviable position that they have the vast majority of their content under management. The challenge for them now is how they add value to it. For example, how do they provide more collaboration or integrate with existing enterprise resource applications?"
Whatever direction the Water Corporation takes next, the eDOCS deployment has ensured that the organisation has a centralised repository of content. It has helped to break down previous information silos at the same time as delivering a more structured security model. Most importantly, it has delivered a solution that resolves the issue of records management compliance both now and in the future.
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