"… and it needs to be as complete as possible, but don’t be afraid to modify it as you learn," says Mark Ozawa, President of HSP Consulting, based in Salt Lake City, UT. "It's amazing what basic things can be overlooked if you don't put a structure around the project. If you still identify a problem or an issue, at least you'll be able to work out its impact and plan around it. Here are a couple of examples."

"1) Failing to define your functional requirements adequately. When selecting new CRS and PMS systems, one chain focused so tightly on the basic functions and short timeframe that its requirements document did not include enough detail and completely missed some areas. As a result, it had to do more manual work with the CRS than had been anticipated, and began to install the PMS product without realizing that some modules were surprisingly lacking in functionality. They were able to scramble to create some work-arounds as they worked further into the installation schedule, but several system enhancements had to be developed by the vendor to accommodate some user needs. And of course the users started off with a really poor impression of the new system."

"2) Failing to identify the installation and set-up requirements. During the multi-property implementation of a new PMS, the Operations department at the chains Corporate office instructed the vendor to coordinate the installations directly with the properties. However, neither the vendor nor the Operations group conducted a thorough review of the many set-up parameters and operating codes beforehand, so the first few hotels each made their own configuration decisions."

"This quickly became a significant problem, and the Systems Group called a halt while standards were reviewed with all parties involved. This was not just for consistent reporting and to prevent the installers from having to cover the same ground at every location, but to make sure that input from other departments was considered. Comment from other disciplines such as Marketing and Accounting was essential to insure that the data generated by the PMSs met the chains needs."

"In addition to the data set-up issue, it quickly became apparent that some hotels were much more successful in their implementation than others. By taking the best practices and codifying them into a standard project plan, the chain was able to insure much smoother installations at the remaining properties, and went on to create standard project plans for other systems it installed later. But the considerable amount of rework needed at the unfortunate early adopters' sites could have been avoided with proper planning."

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