1. It’s never too early to start planning

Whether you are rolling out new digital signage screens, a POS system, computers, or a WiFi network, you can’t start planning soon enough.  You need to survey the environments where the new systems will be installed to fully understand the obstacles and challenges that your installer will encounter; this survey will help you develop detailed instructions that will enable your installer to perform the work as efficiently as possible. 

You should also consider all the things that could go wrong so you’ll be able to build contingency plans around them.  Keep in mind that you may not think of everything that could go wrong; that’s why it is so important to produce a realistic deployment schedule that allows for some wiggle-room to deal with delays.  Since every location may be a little different, a project schedule that isn’t too aggressive and offers contingency plans when things don’t go exactly according to schedule will prevent your entire rollout from derailing due to one problem site.

2. Produce Detailed Installation Instructions

When you survey your locations, take photos of the environment and document the way a proper installation should look when finished. Include drawing & diagrams to further illustrate the solution. If your organization has produced a company-wide set of technical standards (defining things like the color-coding scheme for your cabling, specific ports on switches/patch panels that are to be used for specific pieces of IT equipment, etc.), then provide those standards as part of your Installation instructions.  The more information your installer has, the more likely they will be to perform the work according to your expectations.

3. Preparing Your Sites

It’s not enough to inform the main contact at each of your locations when their installation is scheduled. If you want their help, you should give some context for the updates and explain how this new technology will improve their lives (benefits to them, their employees, and/or their customers).

You should also make sure they have room to store any equipment that will be shipped to their location prior to the scheduled installation date, emphasizing the importance of making sure that equipment won’t be tampered with or stolen, and that it isn’t stored in any way that can negatively impact its eventual installation.

Finally, your on-site contacts will need to prepare the physical environment and their staff for the actual installation.  If you wait until the installation technician shows up on site before moving furniture or equipment out of the installation location or the infrastructure pathways, then the installation will almost certainly take longer than expected.  Those delays will increase your cost and lengthen your timeline.

4. Perform Pilot Site Installation before the Rollout begins

The primary cause of projects not meeting budget/schedule/scope targets is due to a failure to perform a pilot site install.  By working side-by-side with your installer, you can ensure that the installation instructions are accurate & complete, identify previously unforeseen problems, and prepare your central IT staff with an understanding of the SOW and troubleshooting tips that empower them to more effectively assist each installation team when they report problems.  Additionally, by performing actual installations at a handful of pilot sites, you’ll establish a baseline from which to estimate the time to complete the installation at each site, and the entire rollout project.

5. Require Complete Documentation from your Installer

Documenting everything is the only way IT professionals can learn from the hiccups they encounter on large rollout projects, and build contingency plans so they don’t repeat those mistake on future projects. Make sure your installers label everything exactly according to your standards. Have them take detailed photos of every installation and send them to you with their completed work orders. Require your installers to check-in and check-out at every site so you can see how many hours they spent performing the work and compare it to your estimates.  Use all of that documentation – as well as all reports of unforeseen problems that were discovered throughout the project – to build a knowledge base to aid your team on future rollout projects.

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