This is the fifth post in our series on Successfully Implementing Project Management Software

We have all seen how people get very feature greedy when implementing software systems. Most new systems will perform many different functions, some of these new to staff members. The stats tell us, if you try to implement all of these features at once you will increase the scope of the project and therefore the likelihood of failure. This really applies to project management software which can be very multifaceted.

Simply put the reason you will fail with this 'all at once' approach is you will spook your staff. Most people don't like change, particularly if it comes with a perceived increase in work load. If you want people to use the system to do things they don't already do plan to release the system in steps. For example getting everyone to create project plans in your new application is a project in itself. If you do succeed at just this one thing I would consider that a massive success. 

Once you have everyone using the project management software for the simple things it's not going to be difficult to slowly broaden the scope of its functionality. If you then want them to forecast, work request, time sheet..etc make those into subsequent projects and leave them well alone till people have fully adopted the first release.

I would suggest ordering the different phases of the project by how beneficial to staff they are and how easy they will be to roll out. Create a long term plan for the whole roll out and move towards that goal in incremental releases. 

Just remember, if you have something complex to roll out.. do it once step at a time