Pilot Support Plan

Be sure to develop your support plan early because you might need to provide training to the support staff. Your support plan should address who will provide support, what level of support they need to provide, and how users can report problems.

Determine who will support the pilot users: will it be the project team, the help desk, or external resources? If the help desk provides the support, how will you train them? What will be the role of the project team? If one of your pilot objectives is to train the help desk, you need resources from both the project team and the help desk.

Determine what service levels you can support during the pilot. For example, must critical problems be resolved within a specified number of hours? During what hours must support be available to the users?

Document the change management and problem management processes for the pilot. Your process should address these issues:

• How are change requests submitted, approved, tested, and implemented?
• Where do users post their problems?

  Can they report problems to an existing system or do you need a new mechanism, such as a Web site, where users can log their problems and questions?

• How will you review, prioritize, and fix problems?
• What escalation process will you use to notify the appropriate personnel?

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