The purpose of the improvement phase is to hand over the solution into production, fine tune the solution and establish how it will be supported now and in the future.

The improvement phase consists of 4 elements:

• Hand over
• Roll out
• Maintenance
• Follow up

These are presented below

Hand over

In the hand over phase, the solution is handed over to production. At this point, all hand over documentation is in place and the hand over process is followed to secure a complete and smooth shift between the project and the production support phase.

During this phase the following activities are performed:

• Process for reporting solution issues is defined
• Process for implementing and testing new solution elements is defined
• Process for requesting support is defined
• Service level agreements (SLA) are defined and agreed
• Outstanding requirements are listed including status and actions

Roll Out

In the roll out phase, the solution is set into production and goes live with additional users.

During this phase the following activities are performed:

• Additional production environments are initiated.
• Additional super-users are identified
• Outstanding requirements are listed including status and actions
• Project evaluation and the project closure are done.

Maintenance

In the maintenance phase, the daily use of the solution is further optimised.

One of the most important parts in this phase is to keep track of new requirements as these typically require a new project to be launched. It is therefore important to have a process for evaluating what is production support and what is a new project.

During this phase the following activities are performed:

• End users are provided with solution support to ensure smooth and optimal use of the solution
• Manual processes are further optimised and/or further automated
• Monitoring of actual use of the financial system and performance
• Reported problems such as user errors, system errors and process errors are reacted upon.
• Development of workarounds and temporary solutions to problems
  • Collection, estimation and decision about priority of new requirements to the solution
• Decision and communication of which issues are rejected, which will be implemented and how and when they will be implemented
• Definition and strategy for handling issues that are not included in the solution template

Follow up

In the follow-up phase the solution is evaluated according to the objectives from the TO-BE, the business case, and the key success factors. The purpose is to evaluate to what extent the objectives set forth have been realised.