Project Name: Contact Center to the Cloud- The Beginning

 This project is not simple by any means. But, then again, most of the project level work that I am assigned is not simple     : ) 

Currently the organization that I work for is using an on prem contact center solution and they have tasked me to take them from 20 year old software to a new SaaS model this year. Wow, as I write it it sounds so simple... like a single sentence right? Well let's dive into why this is not as simple as a single sentence by me sharing you the current and then me showing you the "to be". To kick things off with a bang how about a visual of business requirements. It is so huge it will not be legible, but it gives context to the size! Also know I do not have all the map bubbles expanded. Incredible.... that I do this work on a daily basis.

History

Now let's give you some history of this 20 year old software. This was before my time but from talking to the business I have determined that we have been on the same system for a very long time simply because it was 1. recommended by our VAR (value added reseller), 2. what the business knows and is most comfortable with, 3. their current on prem solution founded a SaaS model within the last 5 years and they decided that they can now stay with what is someone known and they can finally go to the cloud. Divine timing really. 

Now some specifics. The contact center is 3 sites deep (including 2 outside of the US) and 2 VDI pools wide (analogy for swimming). There is approximately 308 users using the on prem solution, which means its not an easy dip your toe in the water scenario : )-- haha again swimming! There are decades of call blocking rules, IVR routing rules, departments, queues, workgroups, agent skills, just to start. Then there is all the data that flows through these pipelines, which many pathways are customized or internal built/stored procedures and trust me when I say its like a tangled web! Year after year, decade after decade of intaking requests through multiple directors has landed us to now. I say now because I am about to share the to be (at a high level, at least the focus areas) next.

The To Be

The future is bright my friends. Most would take one look and be like, nope... to much baggage here to do this in a year. Not me. See that is something to learn early, I love a challenge. I am a project manager that runs towards the bullets verses running from the bullets. I find the messy stuff is where my skillset shines. Ask anyone that I work for or with, they will tell you straight- She is a firefighter, she likes to put out big fires. Even though 20+ years of changes, customization and builds have ran the contact center up until now, I am ready to bring forth the idea of a new fresh start is a beautiful blessing. We will start with the basic questions: Who are the agents. Who are the business. After this, we have the foundation to ask the million dollar question...What are your goals, What does success look like for you? But it truly does start at the basics. This linear thinking allowed the business to have a starting point to begin such a feat ahead. My system's analyst is also encouraging a starting question of tell me about your goal. I do the same, but often back up 10 steps and say let's talk about who are the players. Ah...good ol'e stakeholder identifying. Sometimes it takes detective work to find the requirements, but it does not take very long to find the players and the drive for the requested change. 

With these simple questions the map was born (well, lol not simple... as that map is HUGE, more like 2 entire weeks worth of meetings with five members of the contact center leadership team) to really learn what are things you cannot live without in your current system, what are things that you wished worked better in your current system, and lastly my favorite, what is something you wished you could have system aside... anything (these land in the should or could have) pile. Ah... good old requirements lanes - must have, like to have, could have...or some say must have, could have, should have, won't have. There are many ways to skin this....whoa let me change the tone : ) I am trying to say, there are many ways to do the same thing when it comes to identifying what is a real requirement and what is something that is feasible but not in scope. Sometimes I will share, maybe we just park it here for a while, but we will not forget you or this! And then make it a mission to come back and ask, do you still want this because capacity has presented itself and if it matters to you, it definitely matters to me.

Just for better understanding here are some high goals

Strip the business of their current call control, call carrier (BYOC model with the SaaS guys), rethink agents, their skills, rethink workforce strategy in general. Also we will focus on new IVR technology such as number dial to text (fancy word here- ), IVR agentless ordering, virtual holds/holding my place in queue, all new workgroup thinking, tiered levels of agents for progression, new data mapping to rely less on prem databases, new thinking on our outbound dialing, introduction of surveys, CSAT scores, quality metrics and performance metrics, expanding our already growing SMS, Whatsapp, Live Chat workflows out of one platform into this platform. We are also doing two side bar integrations into the new SaaS solution (QA software and Survey Software). Whew.... that is a lot and the list is actually longer than this paragraph, but it gives you as the reader insight to how impactful this project is and how much team collaboration it will require. 

The Center of the PM Triangle (Quality Control)-- more on the triangle later

All in the center of this is me, the project manager. Needless to say, we have a growing pile of stories (agile term, I will talk more about this in a future post) and a long list of as is documentation starting to grow. As a project manager I have to know just enough about all of this to be able to speak on the teams behalf, update the executive leadership and hold my own with developers, data base admins, automation engineers and the smes (subject matter experts) of the as is on prem! Whew... but hey that is what I do. I get in the weeds, learn the teams knowledge, represent them with excellence and am not afraid to ask questions or say openly in a team meeting.... tell me more about this as you- talking to them- are the expert and my goal is to get you what you need to move forward. Hence I learn it along the way. yay! 

This is just the beginning!

Looks like next post I gotta break down a few things for you to digest. I will focus on the term agile, a story, a requirements matrix, some back ground on the tools I use daily and for sure I need to tell you about the team dynamics of this team that I got here on this project because they are each beautiful inside and out. But we will save that for next time. Let's end here for today.