One of the toughest realities that a utility must face is its need to dedicate key staff to an implementation project. CIS solutions are becoming more and more multi-dimensional. Therefore, the time that it takes to configure a new solution is longer than it once was. And, of course, all of the changes take time to test.

Most vendors tell their clients that the people who need to be dedicated to the installation of the project are the very people that the utility can least afford to pull from ongoing work. This dilemma has to be solved in order to successfully implement an efficient and effective system.

How can you possibly do this? How can you get all of the work done when the key people on whom you should rely will be off working on facets of the CIS project? There is no question that these are tough times and many utilities don't have the staff they once had. Those who remain already are working much harder than they ever did. Every situation is different and there is no one, easy answer to this problem. But, I can tell you how a few utilities have addressed this issue.

First let's look at what a core team for a customer system implementation might look like. The following organizational chart represents a fairly typical utility implementation team:

The vendor assigns a project manager, lead consultants and other business and technical people to deliver the system. Sometimes they work at the vendor's offices and other times they work alongside the utility's team. The utility may enlist an independent quality assurance manager.

The utility's project manager is the person to whom all of the utility's dedicated core team members report. The utility project manager coordinates all activities to ensure that the system is operational as planned following the go-live date. Sometimes this coordination includes outside contractors and even the CIS vendor, in addition to the utility's staff. The project manager is responsible for resource planning and scheduling, problem solving, relationship management (both within the team and with the vendor), and project communication and reporting.

The team also must include business experts from the various functional areas. The chart suggests a representative from customer service, one from billing, one from collections, one from the meter shop and one from the operations area. The number of functional specialists needed will depend upon how the utility is organized and the amount of experience and knowledge that each individual possesses. Sometimes just a few individuals can cover all of the functional areas. At other times each area within the utility is so specialized that one person from each functional area is required for the core team. These are the primary individuals who assist in configuring the system. They convey to the vendor how the utility operates and does business. They are involved in defining work-arounds, or business process changes and they are the primary individuals who decide how the system will run for the utility. Additionally, they are the primary system testers and may also become the system trainers.

The functional experts on the core team are supplemented at times with other functional subject matter experts. For example, specialists from accounting need to be involved in the setup of the general ledger. Meter reading, remittance processing and bill printing specialists are required when those aspects are being configured and tested.

The core team also contains IT staff. Technical staff assist with conversion, document the data requirements, extract data from the legacy system, ensure that data mapping is complete and accurate, and document the process. Other IT staff assist with system interfaces, work with the vendor to formalize requirements, develop interface specifications, build (if required) the utility's side of the interfaces, and participate in testing those interfaces. IT staff also are involved in the development of both production and ad-hoc reports. In addition, IT assistance is required to establish the hardware environment, including obtaining both server and client hardware and properly integrating it into the utility's network environment.

TMG Consulting has found that, on average, a utility spends approximately $10 per customer on in-house staffing costs. This means that if your utility serves 150,000 customers (accounts, meters, etc.), you can expect to spend about $1.5 million for the salaries of your staff needed to implement the system. This figure could include bonuses, paying for unused vacations, and hiring additional staff. It does not include turnover costs associated with the stress and frustration of implementing a new customer solution.

This leads us back to the original question: How will you manage to dedicate competent people to this project?

Several utilities with which I've worked staffed the business side of the core team with their customer service, billing, etc., supervisors. At the same time, they made their lead employees in these areas into working supervisors or they spread supervisory duties among remaining supervisors. This seemed to work quite well until an issue would arise and, ultimately, the actual supervisor would be called from the project team session to handle the situation. A representative from one utility told me that in order for this arrangement to work well, it is important that supervisors who are left in their positions or who have expanded responsibilities be strong enough to handle performance-level staff issues.

Another utility's functional core team members were dedicated to the project but were still expected to work a few hours each day on their regular duties, and sometimes even come in on weekends to complete work. This, too, worked for a while but team members eventually ran out of energy, resulting in the go-live being stretched out a little further. It also created a tremendous amount of conflict among team members as their stress levels rose.

In at least one situation a utility was able to find a few individuals who had worked in key functional areas such as customer service but who had retired or moved on to other areas such as marketing or public affairs. These people were borrowed back for the duration of the CIS project. The only problem with this scenario is that once the system went live, these system-knowledgeable people went back to their marketing and public affairs jobs, and the utility did not benefit from their knowledge of the new CIS.

The best scenario I have seen is when a utility allowed its key functional people to be dedicated full-time to the CIS project and backfilled the open positions before the project ever began. This has been done in two different ways. One utility, which historically had a fairly high turnover rate, actually hired additional people, trained them, and had them in place in the functional area before the project started. Their justification was that their staff's productivity would fall off for a period following go-live, and that natural attrition would eventually result in the proper staffing level. Another utility hired temporary staff for some of their entry level positions and gave some staff temporary promotions, allowing a few key functional people to be freed up for the project. Then, when the project was over and their staff's productivity was back where it should be, they released the temporary staff and everyone went back to their regular positions.

It can be a little easier with the technical resources required for the core CIS team. At least one utility hired an outside contractor as their project manager. They did not feel that they had in-house staff available to do this and they wanted someone who had training and experience managing such a project. Other utilities have also gone outside of their companies and hired contractors for positions such as testing manager, technical lead on interfaces and hardware/environment, training manager and conversion specialist. We have also noticed a trend in which utilities are beginning to ask their product vendor or a system integrator to take over more of the technical tasks that have traditionally fallen to the utility. While this almost always has worked well, it is important to factor in some time for critical knowledge transfer from these outside experts so that the utility does not remain dependent upon them for the long run.

In summary, it is important to think about project staffing well before your implementation project begins. While most CIS solutions are product solutions (configured with few or no customizations), they are not like a standard off-the-shelf product that can be purchased from a software store. They have to be configured and tested for each unique situation and they have to be integrated into the utility's computing environment.

It is important to have competent, knowledgeable people setting up the system to ensure it works at peak performance. And, once you have a plan for staffing your project, make up a backup plan, too—we all know that things seldom work out as planned.

Someone once told me that installing a new CIS is a lot like having a baby. You have to go through months of frustration and pain, which sometimes seem unbearable, in order to reap the benefits and joy of a new CIS.

Gary Weseloh is a Vice President and Senior Consultant with TMG Consulting. He has more than 30 years of utility experience, including the management of customer systems (CIS, meter reading, remittance processing, complex billing) at a large combination utility, consulting on mobile computing/field work automation, and extensive selection, evaluation and installation oversight projects with TMG Consulting. He can be reached at garyw@tmgconsulting.com.