HRM 520 Assign 4

Running head: SYSTEM DELVELOPMENT LIFE CYCLE PHASES IV & IMPLEMENTATION AND MAINTENANCE 1

SYSTEM DELVELOPMENT LIFE CYCLE PHASES IV & IMPLEMENTATION AND MAINTENANCE 6

System Development Life Cycle: Phases IV & V – Implementation and Maintenance

Melissa Miller

Professor: Dr. Dana Richmond

Strayer University

Global Campus

HRM 520: Human Resource Information Systems

November 19, 2018

All businesses look forward to a successful HR system implementation. However, specific issues lead to the failure of the system. The primary cause of system implementation failure is a lack of clear objectives at the beginning of the implementation process (Kavanagh, 1990). Organizations should ensure that critical business processes such as financial benefits and deadlines are well defined to give direction to the HR system. Another factor contributing to the failure of system implementation involves poor planning and management. Some organizations make unrealistic project management plans that overestimate the organization’s capabilities. Businesses should make rational series of processes to identify the gaps that may lead to implementation failure.

Change Management

Change is inevitable in any business entity. Failure to manage the changes may result in overall business failure. Business should apply change models that to ensure useful and beneficial changes. Some of the change management models include Lewin’s change management model that involves unfreezing the current business process, changing into another method and refreezing which entails implementing the business new business process (Levasseur, 2001). Another change model is Kotter’s theory. The theory involves a series of eight steps that should be undertaken when implementing a change. The steps include creating urgency, building a guiding team, developing goals, communicating the by-ins, eliminating barriers, developing short-term wins, supporting acceleration and ensuring the changes are inflicted.

Another change model is The McKinsey 7-S model. This model involves examining the crucial aspects of an organization. The elements include strategy, style, staff, skills, shared values, systems, and structure (Kaplan, 2005). The most effective change model is the McKinsey 7-S model. The model enables organizations to quickly identify the weaknesses that need more attention during the process of implementing change. The steps included ensuring the effectiveness of the model comprises:

1. Examining the strategy

2. Assessing the organization structure

3. Analyzing the systems

4. Documenting the shared values

5. Evaluate the leadership and management styles

6. Evaluating the staffing

7. Evaluating the skills of the employees.

HRIS Implementation

The implementation period for the HRIS takes approximately eight weeks to reach the go-live phase. The activities undertaken before the go-live phase include:

1. Research and discovery- This activity involves numerous study and developments. The research and discovery activities occur within one to two weeks. The main participants in this stage are the human resource professionals and the top managers. The senior managers audit all business processes to keep them in check whereas the human resource professionals decide on automating the desired operations.

2. Installation- this activity takes a few days to be complete. It mainly involves the installation of technological features. The main participants in the installation activity are the IT professionals as they are skilled in performing the installation processes.

3. Data conversion- the conversion processes takes a maximum of two weeks to be completed. The completion period depends on the compatibility of the new system with the old system and the amount of data to be transferred manually. The participants in this stage may include selected employees and managers who are eligible for transferring the relevant information manually.

4. Configuration, review, and testing- during or after the data conversion activities are complete, the configuration process for the HRIS dashboard commences to accommodate the employees’ and the company’s needs. After the configuration process, selected managers, employees and human resource officials test the HRIS. Configuration review and testing activities may take one week based on the time taken to acquire feedback from the participants.

5. Employee training- training may consume some weeks depending on the immensity of the changes in the company and the capability of employees to learn. All employees participate in the training activities (Kavanagh, 1990).

Cost-Benefit Analysis

HRIS Cost-Benefit Analysis Matrix of Bamboo HR

		Direct	Indirect
Benefits	Increased Revenues	Improved management performance Increased staff productivity	Motivation of employees Revenues increase by 30%
	Reduced costs	Cost of paperwork on performance management reduce from $70,000 to $30,000 Loss of performance reviews	Less time used in reviewing performance Less time used in addressing employees’ needs
Costs	Implementation Costs $40,600	Installation fee $30,000 Training costs $5,000 Software License $2,000 Monthly fees $299	Reduced productivity during system installation

The cost justification strategy used to justify the cost of the HRIS is the organizational enhancement strategy which mainly focuses on the benefits that will be incurred by the organization. The interests include improved employee performance, increased staff productivity, reduced costs of performance reviews and paperwork from $70,000 to $30,000, reduced time costs on addressing the needs of the employees and an estimated 30% increase in revenues. The implementation costs will amount to approximately $40,600. However, the company will increase its productivity and enjoy a 30% increase in taxes. The system is therefore justifiable to commence as the fees will recover the costs of implementation.

Maintenance

Maintenance is the most crucial part of the HRIS implementation. Failure to maintain the system leads to system failure. The company will perform monthly, quarterly, biannual, annual maintenance as well as undertaking vendor meetings and conferences (Kavanagh, 1990).

The monthly maintenance will involve applying upgrades from the vendor and fixing bugs. The quarterly maintenance will be performed after three months to review security access and tune the third party or in-house professionals. Biannual maintenance will be undertaken after every six months to ensure that the system keeps up with the technology trends by upgrading the system. Similarly, the additional functions, reports, and features will be eliminated from the system. The vendor conferences and meetings will enable the company to gain information from the vendor.

References

Kaplan, R. S. (2005). How the balanced scorecard complements the McKinsey 7-S model. Strategy & leadership, 33(3), 41-46.

Kavanagh, M. J., Gueutal, H. G., & Tannenbaum, S. (1990). The human resource information system. Development and Application, Boston: PWS-Kent.

Levasseur, R. E. (2001). People skills: Change management tools—Lewin's change model. Interfaces, 31(4), 71-73.