The number of companies involved in SaaS deployments is doubling in the next 12 months; many of them have experienced pitfalls that could have been avoided with some minor research and planning up-front. While there is a diverse amount of technology and business processes that can be addressed using SaaS, there remains a handful of common tasks that need to be performed at the beginning of your project that will aid in tracking the projects impact and progress.
Deployment Footprint
Create a UML Deployment diagram early. A Deployment Diagram helps everyone quickly identify what systems and users will be impacted by the change in technology and process. Having the Deployment Diagram exist as a living artifact throughout the lifetime of your project also helps other teams easily asses impact to any new or existing projects.
Project Timeline
Leverage your SaaS providers experience. Often service providers for SaaS projects will have a library of best-practices that can aid your project management team. Focus on how the SaaS company defines milestones and understand how they project the duration from one milestone to the next. The information the SaaS...