10.1. Following the Steps to Building Infrastructure

Building anything, from a house to a CRM solution, often involves multiple activities and multiple people. The strategic and project plans keep everyone focused on the end goal. A methodology that governs how the work gets done helps keep everything aligned and on track. I've been asked about how to justify all this effort because it may seem pretty big and very costly. The truth is, after your company has decided to adopt a CRM approach to managing customer relationships, following this kind of process is the quickest, most efficient and least costly way to achieve successful results.

There is a familiar project management method that is used heavily in the Information Technology world, but it also applies to and has been adopted by non-technical project teams. The standard development methodology includes these steps:

In the CRM life cycle, the project launch occurs during the transition from strategic planning (Phase 1) to building infrastructure (Phase 2), and implementation (integration) occurs during the transition from building infrastructure to understanding customers (Phase 3). As you can see in Figure 10-2, this methodology aligns closely with the first half of our CRM life cycle, which includes the entire project development work that we do to create change inside the company.

The last step, supporting the infrastructure that has been built, is a critical consideration for each of the components. Although strictly speaking, support is not part of the CRM life cycle that focuses on repeated development efforts, it is extremely important to prepare to support each of the components as it becomes part of the organization's operational infrastructure. We will look at some of the considerations for supporting the CRM components in Chapters 20 and 21.

The building infrastructure phase is comprised of the remaining three steps: requirements, analysis and design, and construction. Table 10-1 summarizes these infrastructure-building activities, their deliverables, and who should participate.

During project launch we identified the high level scope for the project. Now we'll start with the first development step, which is to gather business requirements for the new infrastructure.