Transitioning the New Product to its New Owners

Up to now, this discussion has focused on the design and development phases of a product. Teams have volunteered countless hours developing new screens, listening to feedback from beta testers, and finally, rolling out the new product to the University. What happens next?

Enter the role of the product’s “business owners.” These are the organizations which take over the stewardship of the new system, a role that is equally important to the product’s ongoing success as the role of the development team. In the case of the new online payroll system, its business owner is the University’s payroll office.

It is important to note that while the role of business owners is especially visible during and after roll-out, these stewards are actually involved with system development right from the beginning. A payroll manager served as a member of the online payroll system UTG. Other payroll staff attended UTG meetings regularly to receive feedback from beta testers and to jointly develop the training and roll-out strategies.

In addition to participating in the development of the new system, payroll staff also provided support and leadership in the following ways:

Providing customer service - answering questions, providing contact information to customers so that they know where to direct their questions, notifying campuses if the system is temporarily down.
Conducting training - holding training sessions during the roll-out phase, providing one-on-one training as needed or requested by specific units, and incorporating training related to the new system into the training offered through Training & Development.
Developing the Help Pages, Online Tutorial and FAQs - writing and maintaining the content of these web pages.
Application Updates - coordinating, creating, or requesting updates to the system application.
Central office oversight - maintaining necessary central functions such as overall fiscal integrity.

This vital partnership between the HR and Payroll Initiative and the Payroll Office continues to be critical to the University’s transition of the new online payroll system. And as new products continue to change other business practices at the University, central offices such as the Payroll Office are also changing their responsibilities from cumbersome paper-based processes to customer service, training, and maintenance of Web tools.

Next: Ongoing Issues and Challenges