Operationalizing the DAP Project Lifecycle

Last Updated September 8, 2023

Brief Overview

Whether your company prefers an agile or waterfall project management approach, defined phases or milestones with entry and exit criteria are critical. A standardized process to record critical technical and tactical aspects of the project allows the Center of Excellence (CoE) to deliver a consistent, repeatable experience. 

Additionally, as your CoE works with stakeholders past the initial go-live on Projects 2-x, a standard project methodology will ensure up-front expectation-setting and accelerated time to value. 

The DAP Project Lifecycle

For a deeper dive, enroll in the free WalkMe Program Manager I – Program Manager Essentials course in the Digital Adoption Institute. 

Initiate

In this first phase, the project as a whole will be initiated. Once the intake form has been received, follow with an intake meeting. This allows the CoE to speak with the requestor to understand needs and requirements for the project. Here you may also develop a business objective and generate use cases. 

Note

For more information on creating an Intake, Prioritization and Approval process, please refer to the following article: Intake Process

Plan

The Project Lead will conduct opportunity discovery to understand the desired output followed by conducting solution discovery. During solution discovery you’ll spend time determining which solutions can fill current gaps. The last part of this phase includes determining key stakeholders for the project.

Execute & Lead

In this phase, you will be managing the DAP Team and their work to complete the project. This will require you to use skills and tools that allow for prioritization and delegation of tasks. It is also in this phase where you will see the biggest lift with risk mitigation.

Go-Live

We’ve initiated the project, completed development, and it is now time to prepare our solutions for publishing. In this phase, typically, you’ll assign stakeholders to troubleshooting, QA, and UAT testing roles. Once the solutions are packaged up and ready for deployment, they are then published.

Note

For more information about Plan, Execute & Lead, and Go-Live, please refer to the following article: Standardizing Content Delivery

Analyze

After a period of time passes where the solutions are in production, you’ll then begin to evaluate the success of the solutions. You’ll measure baseline metrics against solution performance and use this data to understand the value of what your project has created. 

Note

For more information about Business Value Alignment, please refer to the following article: Data-Driven Decision Making

Optimize 

WalkMe is not a set-it-and-forget-it solution. In this phase, focus on a data-driven approach to evaluating current implementations. Is the content getting the expected engagement? What do we need to adjust so the engagement can improve? Have any workflows changed since our last content edit? Have our business objectives and focuses changed? 

Note

For more information about Content Maintenance and Optimization, please refer to the following article: CoE Content Maintenance Strategy

Example Standard Operating Procedure for Project Stages

Phase Entry Criteria Activities During Phase Exit Criteria People Involved
Initiate  Business stakeholder submits intake form 

Resource Allocation

Intake form reviewed

Project assigned priority in queue 

Kickoff meeting scheduled 

Program Manager

Project Lead 

Business Stakeholders

Business SMEs

Plan Kickoff meeting 

Establish Roles & Responsibilities 

Discovery via Goal Cascading 

Configuration plan

Segmentation plan

Deployment plan

Data Strategy plan

Content delivery scope 

Solution Design Sign off 

Project Lead 

Builder

Data Analyst

Architect

Business Stakeholders

Business SMEs

Execute Solution Design Sign off 

Content Creation

Testing

Quality Assurance

UAT

Value & Reporting Alignment

DAI Certifications & Building Resource Efficiency

Go-Live Checklist

Publishing content to Production environment 

Project Lead 

Builder

Data Analyst 

Designer

Architect

Business Stakeholders

Business SMEs

Go-Live  Publishing content to Production environment 

Confirm Value One 

Confirm accurate Reporting & Data Confirm Report Subscriptions Setup

Hypercare 

Hypercare completed

Project Debrief meeting scheduled 

Project Lead 

Builder

Champion

Business Stakeholders

Analyze  Project Debrief meeting completed  Insights Review Business data reporting/data review  Data collection to drive required adjustments 

Project Lead 

Builder

Data Analyst

Business Stakeholders

Business SMEs

Optimize  Data collection (via raw data or reports) to drive required adjustments 

Scope optimization requirements

Plan for maintenance needs via upcoming platform releases 

Adjust content to optimize 

N/A – This is an ongoing phase 

Program Manager

Project Lead 

Builder

Data Analyst

Designer 

Champion 

Architect

Business Stakeholders

Business SMEs

Connect with Peers via the WalkMe Community

Make it real! Visit the WalkMe Community and join Strategy & DAPtics – a peer-led group that meets monthly to share resources and discuss Digital Adoption strategy.

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