1. LiveCycle User Group Presentation:
Kicking Off a Successful Business
Automation Project
Presented By:
www.aboutweb.com www.dc-livecycle.org
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Capital Area LiveCycle User Group – January 16, 2009
2. Presentation Summary
• Where to Start
• Stakeholder Management
• Gathering Requirements
– Project Level
– Form Level
• Analyzing Requirements
• Maximizing Project Team Efficiency
• Before you Begin…
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Capital Area LiveCycle User Group – January 16, 2009
3. Where to Start
• Identify Project Goals (high‐level)
• Establish criteria for meeting goals
• Evaluate which products you will need to
meet goals
• Determine resources necessary to achieve
success
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Capital Area LiveCycle User Group – January 16, 2009
4. Identifying Stakeholders
• Internal Stakeholders
Management
–
Project Team
–
Form Owners/Managers
–
End‐Users/Process Participants
–
IT Support Staff
–
• External Stakeholders
– Client/Contractor Management/Personnel
– End‐Users/Process Participants
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Capital Area LiveCycle User Group – January 16, 2009
5. Stakeholder Management
• Develop a management plan
– Get key stakeholders involved early
– Identify stakeholder needs
– Address stakeholder concerns
– Implement a communications strategy for
disseminating project information/updates
– Meet individually with key stakeholders
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Capital Area LiveCycle User Group – January 16, 2009
6. Stakeholder Management
• Tools &Tips: Getting Stakeholder Buy‐In
– Hold technology presentation for stakeholders
– Establish regular project updates with open forum
sessions to discuss changing needs
– Get stakeholders involved in the QA process (where
appropriate), or demo progress to show forms in action
– Set up training sessions to increase comfort levels with
new technology
– Start transition planning early to manage expectations
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Capital Area LiveCycle User Group – January 16, 2009
7. Requirements Gathering
• Tools & Tips: Requirements Gathering and Discovery
– Every form and process couplet is unique so requirements
must be gathered at the individual form level.
– Forms owners and stakeholders must agree on form
revisions and process automation decisions (end users
should be included in requirements gathering process).
– Requirements must be clear but flexible to allow for value‐
added improvements and optimization of the automation
process.
– A single point of contact for requirements between client
and project team is key for managing change control and
validating requirements.
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Capital Area LiveCycle User Group – January 16, 2009
8. Requirements Gathering
• Identify Which Forms/Processes will be included in
the project
• Meet with form owners/users to review the
current form design and process
• Identify necessary updates and areas of
improvement for both form and process
• (May involve LiveCycle consultant/expert at this
stage to make recommendations)
• Map form and process requirements to LiveCycle
Component Functionality
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Capital Area LiveCycle User Group – January 16, 2009
10. Requirements Gathering
• Some questions to ask:
Which parts of this form are critical?
–
Is any part outdated or unnecessary?
–
Who may authorize changes to a form?
–
How can data entry/process tasks be
–
consolidated/optimized?
What flexibility is there in consolidating design across
–
multiple forms?
How will forms be stored/archived?
–
What is the future of this form or process?
–
How can this form/process take advantage of the
–
capabilities that LiveCycle provides?
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Capital Area LiveCycle User Group – January 16, 2009
11. Sample Form:
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Capital Area LiveCycle User Group – January 16, 2009
12. Requirements Gathering
• Translating Business Processes to Automated
Workflows
– Create static process flow diagrams for each
form representing the internal process objectives
– Develop a list of custom components or
functionality required to meet these objectives,
for example:
• Render forms with logged in user data
• Database integration
• Dynamically directed workflow, etc.
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Capital Area LiveCycle User Group – January 16, 2009
14. Requirements Gathering
• Meet with stakeholders to review/prioritize
requirements
• Suggested Outputs/Deliverables:
– Prioritized list of form requirements (high‐level)
– Set of individual form design requirements
– Process diagrams for each form/process couplet
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Capital Area LiveCycle User Group – January 16, 2009
15. Analyzing Requirements
• Review/analyze all form/process
requirements
• For each form/process list common or
custom features
• Create a table or spreadsheet to help
Identify areas of consolidation (where
forms/processes overlap and can be
combined)
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Capital Area LiveCycle User Group – January 16, 2009
16. Maximizing Project Team Efficiency
• Develop form templates (standardize design)
– Sort forms into like groups
– Establish design and style guidelines for each group that
may be different from the baseline
– Create templates in the repository for project team use
• Identify reusable form objects/fragments
– Preset custom objects such as input fields, signature fields,
etc. with agreed upon style settings so development is
drag and drop
– Encourage development team to save complex custom
objects and share object libraries
– Use fragments for objects that appear in multiple forms
and may be edited, such as image files, logos, etc.
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Capital Area LiveCycle User Group – January 16, 2009
17. Maximizing Project Team Efficiency
• Build custom components in advance
• Establish process development standards:
– Establish naming protocols for pools, swimlanes, user
tasks, variables, file names, etc.
– Develop default text templates for task instructions,
buttons, email subjects, etc.
– Define standard process options (manager review/reject,
return to author or previous user, cancel request, etc.)
– Determine how processes will be closed out/completed.
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Capital Area LiveCycle User Group – January 16, 2009
18. Maximizing Project Team Efficiency
• Suggested Outputs/Deliverables:
– Form design template(s)
– Set of form design standards/style guidelines for
developers
– Process design/standard text template(s)
– Set of process design standards/style guidelines
for developers
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Capital Area LiveCycle User Group – January 16, 2009
19. Before You Begin…
• Introduce the new templates/style guides to
stakeholders
• Revise/update project goals as necessary
• Re‐evaluate which forms/processes should be
included in the project based on time/budget
• Re‐evaluate which products you will need
• Determine resources necessary to meet project
goals
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Capital Area LiveCycle User Group – January 16, 2009
20. Contacting AboutWeb
AboutWeb Corporate Other Locations:
Headquarters
• Vienna, VA
6177 Executive Blvd
• Raleigh, NC
Rockville, MD 20852
• Charlotte, NC
P: 301.468.9246
• Baltimore, MD
F: 301.468.9670
www.aboutweb.com
Speaker: Anne Redding, Project Manager/Lead Process Designer
301.468.9246 ext. 151 • aredding@aboutweb.com
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Capital Area LiveCycle User Group – January 16, 2009
