the fine art of meticulous planning

For the past 3.5 months, I have been working closely with my IT department on the upgrade to Office 2007 for our PC users.

A number of years ago, a friend Dante, referred to me as an Alpha Female and it was pretty apparent during our Office 2007 kickoff meeting, that he was quite correct in his characterization. Without premeditation or desire, I found myself in the role of team leader and project manager for this enormous undertaking.

Worst of all, one of the team members suggested that I send out a project plan to the team in Microsoft Project. I had never used, let alone, seen Microsoft Project so I gulped and agreed to task.

So, I logged onto the online learning portal I purchased for the company and spent 5 hours taking online courses in Microsoft Project. Once the software was loaded onto my laptop by the wonderful folks in IT, I was on my way. After a few hiccups and restarts, I finally prepared the project plan and presented it to the group about 2 weeks later. I was quite relieved when the feedback was positive.

As we continued in the project, we added additional items to the project plan including a comprehensive communication/internal marketing plan as well as a training plan. There were a few bumps along the way but all in all, it came together really well. We decided to over-communicate with employees about the upgrade and the available training which worked out really well. The communication/marketing plan included posters, stickers on paychecks, tent cards on desks and e-mail blasts.

As the upgrade began on Friday evening, we all held our breaths. The IT folks had a few dilemmas over the weekend, but nothing too major. I drove in 200 fantastic bagels (from the fine folks at BagelMasters in Shrewsbury), a variety of schmears & orange juice from the Jersey shore on Monday morning for employees to enjoy while they waited for their Outlook 2007 to configure. Even the movie set on the street blocking my access to the building didn't deter me from my mission. Bagels, cream cheeses and juice were safely delivered to each floor.

We started training sessions on Monday morning to provide employees with an overview of the major changes for each software program. My first session had over 40 attendees! I walked the floors later that day and was pleased to hear lots of keyboard clicking. My initial fears of lost productivity due to the significant changes in the Office 2007 suite were gone. We had done our job and done it well. (sigh of relief)