When it comes to successful implementations, one of the key things to consider is the timing resolution of project decisions, critical issues, and critical risks. There are a lot of things that might impact a project during implementation, which is why certain decisions need to be made in a timely manner with the right people in place at the right point in time. They need to be documented and not revisited because otherwise people tend to pick apart decisions that were made three months ago. When things get brought up in testing that should have been handled weeks ago, it makes it incredibly difficult to maintain the timeline and avoid rework.
Mitigating that is partly about setting up a proper structure. There have been plenty of times I've needed to ask the client to consider the effect these decisions have on business. If the impact isn’t large enough, they usually feel more comfortable putting it in the post go live bucket. Putting aside the time to do that prioritization saves time, stress, and documentation, but setting that structure up ensures that the business owners can see that those items are still on this log but priority number one is getting to the go-live.
