Transitioning from a Customer Site to the Company Site

by Victoria Scott, PMP, Project Manager

Moving is a major life change and one which is often regarded as one of the most stressful—packing, coordinating movers, unpacking, getting familiar with a new area. Now imagine moving a team of people and a truckload of equipment with you while successfully performing business tasks.

That is exactly what my team and I did in October of 2006. After being at the customer’s site for over seven years, we moved to ActioNet Headquarters (HQ). Our customer-owned equipment—workstations, printers, laptops, projectors, Development/Test servers, and peripherals—all moved with us. We also needed to set up a T1-line to directly connect to our customer’s network. Did I mention that no other team in ActioNet had ever made such a move and that no other customer contractor had a direct T1? Oh, and our time frame was one month. Talk about overwhelming. So what should a Project Manager do? Start planning!

With no prior model to follow, planning was paramount. I worked with ActioNet HQ and my customer to plan the activities required. I created a project schedule and identified three critical steps: preparing ActioNet HQ to receive the team, installing a T1 connection, and getting network peripherals from the customer’s IT Department. The first task was completed extremely quickly. The second two were the customer’s responsibility. Since both were to be completed by outside vendors, these tasks were identified as high risk, having the potential to cause schedule delays.

With the most critical tasks out of my control, I focused on planning the details of moving the team and our belongings and I concentrated on communication: with my customer, my team, ActioNet HQ, and stakeholders within my customer’s organization that we had established working relationships with. I also started planning how to maintain those good working relationships with the customers and new ones in the future.

I provided the customer with details about ActioNet HQ, including secure access, details about the team’s space, and ActioNet’s server room. ActioNet HQ set up cubicles, phones, and network cabling (using a specific color for easy identification), and set aside space in their server room. ActioNet HQ met with my team and surveyed the customer’s equipment. The team diagrammed details about the server room and equipment and inventoried all equipment. This information and other details were placed into an IT Facilities document for the customer, which is maintained as a current record of their equipment at ActioNet’s site.

We made plans for the move day, which would occur during only one business day to minimize productivity loss. As soon as the T1 and peripherals were installed and successfully tested, the team’s move date would be scheduled. ActioNet moved non-essential team belongings in advance. On move day, ActioNet moved all remaining personal belongings and the customer provided movers for their equipment. A customer visit to our new facilities was scheduled for the next day. The following day was reserved for team training and an overview of new procedures.

To prepare for this big day, I worked with the customer to notify stakeholders within their organization and provide them with our new contact information. I requested that SMS be installed on all team members’ workstations so that they could provide remote assistance to our customers. We planned to travel to the customer’s site once a week for face-to-face interaction and to hold other meetings via conference call and NetMeeting.

On the day prior to the move, directions for reconfiguring our workstations were distributed and directions to ActioNet HQ were reviewed. The T1 installation did end up delaying the schedule, but since the risk was identified and planned for, the impact was minimal. The move went extremely smoothly and team members were back to work by the afternoon. We’ve kept our communication model and retain high customer satisfaction ratings. Now a sister team in the customer’s organization may be making the move. Our customer has agreed to let them use the installed T1 and things should be smooth for them because they have our successful model to follow.