Preparing your organization to accept a comprehensive Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) solution can feel a bit daunting but in reality, if you break the implementation down into strategic go-live events, you encounter a much smoother transition into PLM business value and adoption.

One of our clients had a very experienced and very direct CIO. He was at one point, very vocal about an engagement that had a defined scope, but no go live event due to the scope being more discovery in nature. All I heard from my contact was the aftermath of the explosive conversation when the CIO found out this effort did not have a go-live with something.

At first we thought this was inappropriate considering the task at hand. However, after further discussions with the client and drawing upon their vast experience with both PLM and ERP implementations, we changed our thinking and saw things in a new light.

• Every scoped phase of the PLM implementation should have a go-live event
• You should scope your phases to be big enough to have something go-live but not so big that it takes too long to get there. We find a 3 month cadence is a good rhythm for the people involved.
• A go-live puts a stake in the ground that keeps the scope creepers from running away with control of the project. They will try, but the go-live event can be used effectively to stop them in their tracks.

In conclusion, we learned a good lesson from our clients very experienced CIO. Go-live or go home!