How does a real world CRM Success Project work?

See in this article the reality of a CRM success project with QGate: a real-life application of the CRM Success Program.

Many customers have embraced the benefits of our CRM Success Program but we are frequently asked how a real-world CRM Success project works.

This article is for you if you want to know what it is like working through a CRM Success project with QGate.

CRM Success project process
Step-by-step of what you can expect working with QGate

Each CRM success project breaks down into 4 phases: Discovery, Requirements, Delivery, and Deployment. During each of these phases, there are ‘Project Gates’ which control and provide agreement to progress your project.

Discovery

CRM success project: discovery
Preparation and Strategy – the key sections of the Discovery Phase

Discovery is all about understanding your business needs and strategy. Our experienced business development team will discuss your…

  • Goals and Objectives, both at business level and project level
  • Business pain points, issues, and critical requirements
  • Business areas requiring CRM, e.g. sales, marketing, customer service, field service, etc.
  • Current/planned infrastructure
  • High-level view of the scope of deployment, i.e. users and their geography
  • Existing systems which will need integration with CRM
  • Possible data source(s) for the new CRM

To help you prepare for the Discovery phase, we provide a free assessment to help you take the first step. With our CRM Readiness Assessment, you can get a benchmark of where you are in your CRM preparation and what is required to move forward.

The objective of the Discovery phase is to agree on the scope of the Requirements Gathering Workshop – the sign of which is the project ‘Gate’ and agreement that we are both happy to progress with the next phase.

A the end of the Discovery phase we will provide you with the following

● Readiness Assessment

● Estimated costs to help you assess the financial feasibility

● Requirements Workshop Statement of Work (SoW)

Requirements Gathering

CRM success project: requirements gathering
Process and Scoping – the key sections of the Requirements Gathering Phase

Process

Process is about mapping the steps of the processes you are looking to support within your CRM system.

The objective of this phase is to agree the Scope Statement of Work (SoW).

The Scope SoW is created through an interactive workshop with your key users during which we cover the following:

  1. Measures of success – what ‘good’ looks like and how do we measure it
  2. To-be process map – the ‘micro’ steps to be carried out by users
  3. Process phasing – group the steps into sensible phases, for example, a sales process might be: Lead, Qualification, Conversion, Delivery, After-sales
  4. User Profiles – establish which user roles are required and their permissions
  5. Technical aspects – data, system integration, and documentation requirements

The level of detail required can be difficult but do not worry, our workshop facilitators will walk you through the process and translate what is in your head into an accurate process map.

The Scope SoW output contains:

● Business Process Flow

● Process Map

● Wire-frame User Interface

● Field Map of automation and calculations

We will present this back in the form of a presentation and walkthrough, providing you with the opportunity to tweak and offer feedback.

Scoping

The objective of scoping is to produce a Delivery Statement of Work (SoW).

We estimate the size of each requirement and pass this list for you to prioritise. We suggest using MoSCoW prioritisation – see more on this here. Each ‘Must Have’ priority becomes your Minimum Viable Product (MVP), and its this MVP which we provide a quote against.

The Delivery Statement of Work (SoW) contains 4 items

DevOps Project – Azure DevOps project will be created as the home of your requirements. During development, you will be able to track progress, comment or re-prioritise your requirements as appropriate

Requirements List – for those unfamiliar with DevOps we will issue a full Excel list of all requirements, their priority, size, description, and acceptance criteria

Commercial Agreement – this will be the terms and conditions which references the product requirements list

Quotation – we provide a quotation for the time/cost required to complete the Minimum Viable Product which you have prioritised

It is important to note that up to this point, no commitment has been made to us as a partner to do the development work or any technology choice made. This approach allows trust to be built between you and QGate as a partner without fully committing. This is core to our CRM Success Program and its One PrincipleThe Freedom to Choose.

Delivery

CRM success project: delivery
Design, Development, Integration, Testing – the key sections of the Delivery Phase

Once the Delivery Statement of Work (SoW) has been agreed and signed off, commitment is needed to technology and partner to develop your CRM. In the QGate world, our favoured technology is Microsoft Dynamics 365.

With your commitment in place, User Acceptance Testing (UAT) Sign off is the key objective of this phase.

QGate uses Agile Software Development methodology. Work is broken down into weekly ‘sprint’ cycles. Work is completed during the week and demonstrated back to the customer at the end of each week.

We use agile as it is found to produce:

● A higher-quality product

● Higher customer satisfaction

● Increased project/customer visibility and control

● Reduced risks

● Faster return on investment

We break down your requirements into week-long development sprint cycles. During these sprints, we will follow the below format. This allows you to get frequent early visibility of what is being built, offer feedback and make changes, reinforcing the freedom to choose principle.

CRM success project Agile Sprints
An example of an agile sprint

This is what a typical cycle might look like:

  1. Monday AM – we will plan the requirements work to be completed that week
  2. Monday PM – we will communicate the planned work for the week to you
  3. Monday – Friday – development work is completed by our professional services team against the agreed requirements
  4. Friday – we will demonstrate the work completed to you
  5. Following Monday – hand over the work to you for user acceptance testing
  6. Following Thursday – we will deploy to the live system (depending on deployment requirements)
CRM Success project 3 sprint development cycle
A typical CRM success project with 3 sprint development cycle

Any work not signed off during user acceptance testing is put back into the product requirements list to be rectified, listed as a change request, bug, or issue.

We will provide you with:

Sprint Plan – a list of user story requirements which will be worked on for that week

Sprint Demo Presentation – at the end of each weekly sprint we will provide a progress report in the form of a presentation detailing work completed, budgeted time usage, and remaining budget

UAT List – Accompanying the sprint demo presentation will be a list of work completed and the agreed acceptance criteria which are used by our customers to sign off completed work, i.e. does the requirement satisfy the acceptance criteria?

Deployment

CRM success project deployment
Deploying and Training – the key sections in the Deployment Phase

Every project comes to an end at some point and releases to end-users.

Final Sign Off for the live system is the final objective. Our focus will be on deployment, training, and handling feedback. We ensure that your CRM system becomes part of your organisation’s community, processes. Most importantly, we will support users in their engagement with the CRM system.

We will provide you with:

● Provision of a full system walkthrough to demo end to end the process you defined during earlier phases

● Set up users, licensing, and permissions

● Any data imports and system integrations put in place

● Provision of access and guidance on how to access

● Issue a user manual

● Carry out any agreed training session(s)

You Are Now the Owner of a New CRM System

CRM success project support and iteration
Maintenance, Support, Evaluation, and Iteration occur post-project

You have a fully working CRM system developed to your priorities, requirements, and processes.

This is the point where the last 2 phases of the CRM Success Program commence. Namely, ‘Maintenance & Support’ and ‘Evaluation and Iteration’. We will engage our support team who will take on responsibility for supporting your users and maintaining your CRM.

We will then discuss after your CRM has had time to embed in your business, where you want to take it next. We will work with you to ensure your CRM system becomes everything it can be for your customers, your users, and your business.

Next Steps

If you’d like to experience the first step of the CRM success program with no obligation, you can book your free CRM Readiness Assessment consultation.

We ask a series of multiple-choice questions which will provide a benchmark on where you are in terms of your readiness to start your CRM implementation.

Book your free consultation and report now…

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