1. Applying Financial System Best Practices to KFS Implementations
Eric Stine, Vice President
Steven Horne, Project Manager
Joshua Andrews, Technical Architect
Exeter Group, Inc.

2. Aim
To leverage more than 15 years of modern enterprise application implementations in the context of KFS
Themes
Planning
Governance
Change Management

3. Getting Started
Implementation methodologies tend to be similar, and all proven methodologies tend to include (with minor variations or nomenclature differences):
Planning
Design
Development/Configuration
Testing and Training
Go-Live
Stabilization & Improvement

4. Getting started
Enterprise implementations have three orphans; don’t let them be forgotten or underfunded
PLANNING

5. PLAN: Org Model
Develop an organization model that works for your institution (Functional teams, Leads, PMO)
The involvement of a Steering Committee and Executive Sponsor/Exec Comm.
Collins: “Get the right people on the bus, and the wrong people off (under) the bus.)

6. PLAN: People
Any Enterprise implementation is, first and foremost, a Change Management project:
Choose people who you can trust to build your future on (Champions)
Backfill them, but understand total backfill is unrealistic.
Compensate them well – these projects are not painless
Use consulting wisely

7. PLAN: Resource Management
More is not always more
It is about process, alignment and understanding
People allocated 50% are never available 50% - and frequently, not when you need them

8. PLAN: Document
Develop detailed documentation of business process to foster a common understanding.
Don’t over-document (diminishing returns), but ensure your work properly represents the business processes of the institution.

9. PLAN: Document
Develop a detailed project plan inclusive of all milestones and dependencies.
Manage to it. Report against it.
Regularly.
Plan, Plan, Plan some more – those who are successful go slow to move fast.

10. PLAN: Budget
Understand what you are getting into; understand what it costs.
Don’t underestimate because you don’t think it should cost that much (Educause)

11. Design Push decision making down to the lowest possible level
Provide an agile and quick escalation process.
Avoid ideological decision-making. Often, it “just depends.” Unless the law or insurmountable change management issues exist, most delivered processes can work.
Frankly assess your tolerance for change

12. Design
Avoid customizations, but understand that you will need some.
Develop an agile approval process, and understand the maintenance impact.

13. Design – Scope Management
What are you trying to accomplish?
Why are you trying to accomplish this?
How will you deal with scope change -

14. Design – Time Management
Things always take longer than expected
The clock keeps ticking -
Time has value
Some “time” is more important than other “time”

15. Choose re-engineering opportunities wisely
DESIGN
Choose re-engineering opportunities wisely
Change
But don’t overreach
Make decisions that will be easy to implement.
Focus on structural elements first – they are foundational. Don’t over complicate things like the COA.

16. DESIGN
Again: Document. This documentation makes end user training, upgrading, improvements, and a host of other downstream activities MUCH easier

17. DESIGN/DEVELOP
Avoid scope creep
Disciplined documentation of why you made decisions

18. DEVELOP/CONFIGURE
Enterprise implementations have three orphans; don’t let them be forgotten or underfunded
PLANNING
DATA CONVERSION/MIGRATION
REPORTING

19. DEVELOP/CONFIGURE
Track all issues, change controls
Assume all changes will need to be maintained in perpetuity

20. TESTING and TRAINING Change Management
Technology is easy; People are hard
Empower people and involve them in the project
Communicate, Communicate, Communicate
You’re moving a lot of people’s cheese

21. Go-Live
When in doubt, go-live (absent significant compelling reasons to the contrary.)
There is always a strong temptation to wait.
80/20 Rule – Perfect is the enemy of good and good is a good place to start

22. Basic Server Setup Two servers, one web/app, one DB
You can do a deployment on one server for pilot purposes, but we recommend splitting server roles for Production
Oracle is the recommended DB platform for now; testing is going on on other platforms

23. Multi-Server Setup
Scalability and redundancy are crucial for large installations
Hardware is cheap; management and configuration are costly
We recommend a Test instance that mirrors Production in hardware

24. Integration/Interface Challenges
Finance systems touch EVERYTHING
Kuali can do real-time but most finance data feeds will be in batch

25. Watch Out For! Have you thought about or done?
Instance management? Development, testing, and Production?
Reporting/data warehousing?
Upgrading/adding more KNS applications?
Will new apps (such as Grants Management) share the same Oracle instance?
How will upgrades to production applications be handled?
Who controls security? Kuali ideally will authenticate off of LDAP, Active Directory, etc.
A full integration test? With live interfaces?

26. Lessons Learned Things take longer than expected
Early is better than late
Build in interim goals and milestones
Have clear lines of responsibility and accountability
Don’t bet the farm, unless you don’t like farming
You are not as unique as you may think
Inventing is difficult

27. Parting thoughts
It’s not over when it’s over.