Phases of Oracle Implementation

Oracle implementation project is always considered as big project and involve

considerable amount of time and efforts from higher management also. It
requires business process analysis, critical decision making for business processes.
In this post we will try to explore the different phases in which an oracle project
can be divided to achieve the best results. From the definition of project itself we
can understand that every project is unique in nature and the same holds true for
these phases. These are the guidelines which are provided by Oracle under AIM
and are generic in nature. Project manager(s) need to understand each phase and
decide the relevance of the same in their environment.

Phase 1 – Project Management

This phase start very early in the project and continue after GOLIVE during
support period also. Starting of every project happens with a Project plan as well
as the resource planning considering the high level requirement of the project.
This project plan should be divided into the different phase of the project and
then base lined. Any change in the requirement need to be taken as a change
request and revised Project plan should be issued for stakeholder’s approval.

Key document Produced: Baseline Project Plan (mpp), Latest project Plan (mpp)
Key Owners: Stakeholders, Client Project Manager(s), Vendor Project Manger(s)
Phase 2 – Requirement Analysis
This is very critical stage of implementation. If proper time and participations are
not given by business analysts then it could lead to major product dissatisfaction
as well as lower the ROI of implementation. In this phase the product consultant
arrange meetings with business analysts (key Business Users) to understand the
client existing business processes. Following activities are performed by
consultants

1. Understand and document the current Organization Structure

2. Prepare the AS- IS Document which details about the existing business
processes

3. Document the expectation after Oracle product is implemented

4. Note down the key areas which are considered as the bottleneck in the existing
processes

5. Final Step (which is very important) is to get the sign off on all the requirements
which are captured. This is the step which is missed and taken very lightly and can
cause issue in managing the requirement at later stage

Key Document produced: Current Financial and Operating Structure (RD10),

Business Requirements Scenario (RD50)
Key Owners: Business Analyst(s), Key Business user(s), Consultant(s), Project
Manager(s)
Phase 3 – Solution Design
This is the phase which is termed as TO BE phase also. In this phase analysis is
done on the existing Business practice and decisions are taken for providing the
solution to each requirement. Gap analysis is also done for the requirements
which can not be met by standard products. After the solution is designed by
consultants then it need to taken with client in a walk through meeting (with flow
diagram or Vision screenshots). This is mandatory as client need to understand
the ‘To Be’ process as well as provide the sign off to Solution design. The areas
where client is not satisfied need to be explored and alternate solution need to be
designed.

Key document produced: Gap Analysis (BR10), Business Requirements mapping

(BR30), Application Extension Functional Design (MD50) and Application Extension
Technical Design (MD70)
Key Owners: Business Analyst(s), Key Business user(s), Consultant(s), Project
Manager(s)

Phase 4 – Solution Building

During this phase the instance is prepared and setup is performed for meeting the
solution design. This phase differs from project to project as in some cases huge
amount of extensions and interfaces are developed. Those complex projects have
this phase divided into different phases of system testing and integration testing.
Following key activities performed in this phase

 Consultant complete the setup from application

 Test the standard Business processes and interact with Oracle for standard
product issues
 Technical consultant completes the customization and deploy for testing on
the basis of MD070 and MD050
 Functional Consultant complete the testing of customization and extensions
Key document produced: Application Setup (BR100), Unit Test Script (TE20),
System Test Script (TE40), System Integration Test Plan (TE120) System Integration
Test Script (TE50)
Key Owners: Functional Consultant(s), Technical consultant(s), Project Manager(s)
Phase 5 – Training and UAT
In this stage client key user get exposed to the application first time. Functional
consultant prepares training manuals and user guides to bring the comfort level
for users. If user base is huge then train the trainer approach is used for training.

This phase is generally divided into two levels

Conference Level Pilot: Consultant works with Key users to demonstrate the
application and take their feedback

User Acceptance Testing: Here Key users as well as End user performs the testing
and provide acceptance of application.

Key document produced: User Training Manual, User Acceptance Test Report
(TE130)
Key Owners: Functional Consultant(s), Technical Consultant(s), Key user(s), End
User(s)
Phase 6 – Non functional Testing
For some of the complex project this phase become very critical as this provides
the real life continuity and volume for testing. For the projects where huge
amount of interfaces are used this phase is critical as extensions and interface
need to be tested against the volume of data to test the performance.

Key Owners: Test team, Infrastructure team, Technical consultant(s)

Phase 7 – Production Cutover and Month end
After the UAT and NFT is approved, the production environment is replicated the
same way as of approved NFT and UAT environment. The GO/NOGO meeting is
conducted with the entire key stakeholder to get the GO decision. After the GO
Decision the production environment is prepared. It is advisable to have this
cloned to another environment which is termed as preproduction environment.
This could be later used as promoting the code to production. After all the
preparation it is handed over to users for entry. This is called as GOLIVE. Once the
GOLive is done then consultants provide support to user for closing the first
month and after the month end all the regular enhancement and issues will be
managed by support team.

Key document produced: Client Sign off certificate

As mentioned previously in every project these phases are used differently and
some of them overlap with each others. Especially the Solution Build and UAT
phase does have lots of different type of testing involved which depends on the
number of interface points. I will discuss few of the testing phases in any
implementation project in coming posts.