Johnson Diversey

Challenge

5 key areas held challenges for Xorbix to manage:

1. Planning: The challenge was how, in six months, to plan for the creation and cutover of 17,000+ email accounts onto the cloud based Google Mail and Collaboration platform. We had to effectively ensure all concerned areas were thoroughly planned for in a short time span.
   
2. Execution: The challenge was how to effectively organize the 5 vendor and employee based 75+ person project team to ensure that all timelines were met, milestones delivered and budgets adhered to.
   
3. Training: The challenge was how to effectively train 12,000+ users in 58 countries speaking more than 28 languages
   
4. Communication: The challenge was how to effectively communicate upcoming changes, training schedules and generally manage 12,000+ user expectations over six months in 58 countries speaking more than 28 languages
   
5. Cutover: The challenge was to select and execute the correct cutover strategy that allowed the IT staff to effectively move the users onto the new Google mail and collaboration platform while ensuring no business impairment occurred and allowed for lower overall support in the future.

Solution

1. Planning: The solution was to breakdown each defined work stream and assign it to each of the teams 5 respective project managers (PM). Xorbix worked closely with each PM to rapidly organize a series of planning meetings to define and organize each functional or technical discipline involved. Xorbix organized all 5 project plans into one master plan; defining all dependencies, resources, tasks and timelines. Xorbix then worked closely in making sure the master plan was adhered to and executed properly.
   
2. Execution: The 5 vendor and employee based 75+ person project team was broken down into 5 functional and technical sub-teams. Also, very key to the success of the project was the creation of a team of 200+ employee Early Adopters consisting of a cross-section of business users was organized globally to provide feedback to the project team prior to rollout of the system globally.
   
3. Training: Xorbix helped define a multi-pronged, multi-lingual strategy consisting of in person, online and virtual training. Over 100+ training sessions were conducted within 2 weeks of the cutover to remain fresh in users minds. In person and online sessions were recorded and prominently posted on the project team website so that users could refer back to them indefinitely.
   
4. Communication: The organization change management aspects of the project were one of the more critical areas. Every communication to the company was translated into 28 languages. All communications were defined during the planning stage of the project. An approval process was enacted with several layers of approval so that all communications were scrutinized prior to distribution.
   
5. Cutover: All 12,000+ users and 17,000 overall email accounts were cutover in one weekend. This "Big Bang" approach allowed the project team to overcome several technical challenges that a phased approach would have presented. In hindsight, given the organizations current mail infrastructure and company culture, this approach was the only sensible way to effectively mitigate risks around business continuity and user acceptance.

Impact

All 12,000+ users and 17,000 overall email accounts were cutover successfully in one weekend. Users worldwide were provided with over 100+ training sessions to become familiar with the new system. Ongoing communications throughout the project kept employees, contractors and vendors informed of the pending change and post go-live communications kept them informed of new features that Google was constantly rolling out. Google was onsite for the go-live in headquarters and filmed video of its largest Lotus Notes conversion to date. Please view the Google video here to learn more about this success for our client: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rLJ4EZnCJCI and look for Brad Schmitz of Xorbix Technologies, manager of the project.