implementation guide for a facilities management system

IBM Software

Thought Leadership White Paper

March 2014

Implementation guide for a facilities management systemAligning your software deployment with your business case helps achieve the results your organization needs

2 Implementation guide for a facilities management system

Contents

2 Introduction

2 Taking a broader, business-focused approach

4 Improving business operations in five key areas

5 Getting started

6 Implementing software solutions for facilities management

7 Performing ongoing, post-deployment activities

11 Conclusion

11 For more information

IntroductionGiven the complex, time-consuming, resource-intensive nature of facilities management, organizations can be tempted to dive quickly into implementing a solution that promises relief. Is the organization spending unnecessary money on square footage it doesn’t need because space isn’t allocated efficiently? Is the facilities staff spending unnecessary time collecting data and allocating facilities manually based on printed CAD drawings? A software solution can help solve these and other facilities management issues. But before the implementation goes too far too fast, there are other steps the organization should take.

From the very beginning, the organization should look at the big picture and establish a business case for implementing a facilities management software solution—sometimes referred to as a computer-aided facility management (CAFM) system. Before it addresses issues of technology or IT operations, the organization must establish why it wants a new approach—including what it hopes to gain—and it must plan the steps for getting there.

Equally important, as the organization implements and then uses its new facilities management solution, it must check in regularly with its stated business case to help ensure that operations have not strayed from the original intent.

Many organizations, however, fail to take these steps or to lay a business-focused foundation. One recent study found that 45 percent of large enterprise software implementations run over budget—and that the greatest single causes of cost overruns are a lack of clear objectives and a lack of business focus. It con-cluded that maintaining objectives and a business focus across the full project timeline can help avoid cost overruns and other implementation and operational problems.1

This implementation guide will describe an approach that includes these business-focused steps, beginning with aligning the selection of facilities management software and the imple-mentation of products with an established business case. It will address how to achieve business goals in five key facilities man-agement areas—facilities space management, strategic facilities planning, workplace performance management, move manage-ment and workplace reservation management. It will conclude with an overview of the software implementation process, from analysis and design through data preparation, development, test and deployment.

Taking a broader, business-focused approachImplementing a facilities management solution is a lot like facilities management itself. The best approach means the work is never really finished. There’s always a need to revisit an earlier step in the implementation to see whether the process needs any touchup, fine tuning or realigning—just the way a facilities manager constantly watches how a building functions and how its assets are holding up. But the extra attention can pay off.

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That’s because the best approach to implementing a facilities management solution involves more than just deploying soft-ware. It involves taking a broader approach that considers what is integral to the business. And when approached this way, an implementation can return solid business benefits. A European company, for example, used its facilities management solution to improve its space utilization and real estate management—saving nearly EUR14 million (USD19 million). A North American firm used its solution to improve space planning—increasing its facility utilization by 20 percent and saving USD30 million in its first year.

The keys to success stories like these are first to create a business case for the facilities management solution and then to regularly ensure that the steps of its implementation and later operation continue to align with that case. The steps look like this:

1. Define the outcomes you want to achieve for the business, not solely for IT

2. Identify the challenges with your current solution that stand in the way of achieving those outcomes

3. Implement a facilities management solution that can address those challenges

4. In each of the several steps of the solution’s implementation, examine whether or not the project is:●● Supporting the business case established in Step 1●● Helping remove business and technical barriers defined in

Step 2●● Producing a quantifiable business outcome and a technical

difference that you can present to the executive team to ensure their ongoing support

Throughout the project, specific requirements will arise. To measure outcomes, for example, the organization will need to select metrics, set targets and make sure the results are available to stakeholders. Details can be as fundamental as ensuring that a global organization uses a common unit of measure. Those details, in turn, set the stage for facilities management functions such as categorizing and analyzing space—and for supporting functions such as chargeback to business units, increased office occupancy or improved conference room scheduling that can support cost savings and productivity.

Ultimately, a focus on the business case provides a constant reminder of why the organization is implementing a facilities management solution. And as important as it is to get the opera-tional and technical aspects of an implementation correct—how the solution is implemented—a business focus can help broaden the view beyond the nuts and bolts of the implementation itself. A business focus can help provide the insight and understanding needed to make more informed decisions—about reaching desired business outcomes in addition to implementing a solution to support those outcomes.

A European manufacturer built a business case reflecting nine categories for business improvement, including optimizing space utilization, and reducing vacancies and churn. It then addressed these areas with a phased implementation of its facilities management solution. Workplace management stressed collaboration with business units and key functional areas such as human resources and IT.


Improving business operations in five key areasBuildings and facilities represent some of the leading expenses organizations face. Ongoing shifts in workforce demographics—from the retirement of baby boomers to the preference of younger workers for more f lexible work arrangements—can raise costs if they result in excess space. Conversely, the spread of many organizations across hundreds or thousands of locations also increases costs with the necessary addition of space. Meanwhile, facilities consolidation and complex moves require careful planning and coordination to increase utilization and productivity if they are to avoid high costs and business disruptions.

Today, the scale and business impact of facilities management are so great that organizations can no longer rely on limited approaches such as point products or manual tools such as spreadsheets. Siloed applications lack both the scalability and the integration with business processes to reduce operating expenses, increase facility utilization and generate measurable savings.

Integrated processes and analytics, on the other hand, can help improve the effectiveness of a distributed workforce, increase facilities utilization and accelerate workplace configurations by supporting smarter, more cost-efficient facilities. Comprehensive facilities management solutions can open up new opportunities for improved facilities management in five key areas: facilities space management, strategic facilities planning, workplace performance management, move management and workplace reservation management. Each can address what the business case seeks to achieve and how facilities management can make business objectives a reality.

Facilities space managementAddresses business needs to:

●● Improve facilities utilization by geography, location or organization

●● Reveal cost and performance issues related to cost per area, occupancy rate and total occupancy costs

●● Identify underperforming facilities, resources and facility management processes

Supports improved management with:

●● Space-measurement and audit tools that identify opportunities for better facility utilization and occupancy management

●● Agreements and chargeback tools to increase departmental accountability for space use

●● Move-planning and management tools to streamline relocation processes

●● Project administration features that track budgets, costs and schedules

Strategic facilities planningAddresses business needs to:

●● Better understand the business goals and facilities requirements of business units

●● Forecast gaps between business demands for space and space availability over time

●● Streamline implementation of facility plans to improve the effectiveness of a distributed workforce and increase space utilization


●● Space-planning analysis and metrics that evaluate optimum facility use

●● Automated management processes that streamline implemen-tation of facility plans

●● The ability to analyze, rank and recommend best-fit actions using scenario modeling and what-if analysis

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Workplace performance managementAddresses business needs to:

●● Identify opportunities to reduce costs of underperforming facilities and management processes

●● Evaluate facilities, processes and resources against planned performance targets

●● Support continuous performance improvements


●● Business analytics for increasing the performance of processes and resources

●● Dashboards designed to increase the effectiveness of system users

●● Space-utilization metrics to identify more efficient workspace configurations

Move managementAddresses business needs to:

●● Achieve greater organizational efficiency by supporting a f lexible and mobile workforce

●● Support a better understanding of service areas, responsibili-ties and service level agreements


●● Effective tools to support those responsible for managing staff movement

●● A self-service web portal through which employees can request facilities services, provisioning and moves

●● Status reports and move-request statistics available via configurable graphs and reports

Workplace reservation managementAddresses business needs to:

●● Reduce administrative and end-user time and costs for managing shared areas such as conference rooms

●● Increase the efficiency and increase the utilization of shared facilities and equipment


●● Self-service reservations for users to simplify onsite and online reservations

●● Automated reservation processing to help improve the efficiency of administrators

●● Space-, equipment- and service-reservation capabilities for mobile workforce temporarily working on site

●● Administrative tools for customizing and streamlining reservation management

●● Integration with work-order and purchasing systems to deliver related services such as food delivery, audio/visual services and room setup

Getting startedAs with any change, the better prepared an organization is for a facilities management implementation, the faster—and more smoothly—the implementation will go. But because facilities management enables the organization to address multiple issues across the physical environment, system implementation can be a complex undertaking.

As the project begins, the organization will need to decide which facilities management components to implement. The options typically cover the five key areas discussed above:

●● Facilities space management●● Strategic facilities planning●● Workplace performance management●● Move management●● Workplace reservation management


And for each solution, organizations can expect to go through specific phases during the implementation. Typical phases include:

1. Organization, strategy and change management2. Analysis and design3. Data preparation4. Development5. Test and transition6. Deployment

In each stage of the implementation, it is important to keep in mind the ultimate intent of the implementation—to support business goals and improvement. Regularly revisiting the business case for the implementation enables the organization to make adjustments as necessary so that the process does not become solely about IT, but rather about using IT to help the business move forward.

To gain leadership buy-in f or a new facilities management solution, facilities management executives at a US manufac-turer presented both the vision of what could be possible and the strategy for how to get there. They showed how they would tackle space first and then maintenance and asset management—creating an environment that was flexible for employee use and responsive to business needs.

Implementing software solutions for facilities managementSuccessful implementation of a comprehensive facilities manage-ment solution involves careful coordination across a wide variety of activities to get multiple systems installed, functioning and delivering the highest level of business advantage. There are a lot of elements to consider, but following the process outlined in this guide can help ensure your facilities management imple-mentation project is a success—on time, within budget and to expectations.

Having performed hundreds of successful implementations, IBM has identified the following phases and steps organizations can expect to complete during the facilities management implementation process.

1. Organization and strategy phaseBy definition, a solution implementation will involve the organization’s technical staff. But it is also important to involve executive management early and to keep them engaged through-out the project—for without active executive sponsorship, the likelihood of success will decrease. It is not enough to have approval and official signoff at the beginning of the project, when the business case for the facilities management solution is presented. Executives must stay involved and must support the implementation team throughout the course of the project. To help assure this necessary engagement, the implementation team must keep executives updated on progress—and most importantly, provide them with quantifiable business-related solution results.

Assemble the project teamA critical early step is to assemble a cross-functional project team for each or all of the five areas typically addressed by facilities management systems—facilities space management, strategic facilities planning, workplace performance management, move management and workplace reservation management.

In putting together the project team, it is important to include a range of skills and responsibilities among members—process experts and business unit executives, for example. An effective team will take advantage of the different viewpoints people from different organizations can bring, and of the fact that each manager and staff within the organization will ultimately benefit from sharing the same facilities management.

Team members typically will include a project manager as well as IT specialists such as a technical administrator, network and systems administrators, and a database administrator. To assure ongoing integration of IT and business goals, however, it is also necessary to include representatives of the various business

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groups that will be affected by the facilities management imple-mentation. These business representatives should interact with the implementation team for all matters relating to functionality and final solution use—and as a result, they must be both techni-cally astute and knowledgeable of the organization’s business practices.

Together, the full team will work with the executives who will oversee the project and the IT staff who will implement the technology to select the functional areas that deliver the highest value; plan the project; provide, enter, validate and test the infor-mation in the new system; and, ultimately, use the new system. Members of the team will also provide training to organization-wide end users once the facilities management system has been implemented.

Establish communicationOnce the project team is assembled, someone should be designated as a project manager. This person should facilitate clear and effective communication among team members so they are all fully aware of their individual roles and responsibilities, including how and when they should perform their tasks. A communication plan should establish who needs to know what and when, in case problems occur. Which team members are authorized to make decisions on behalf of the project? How is the team informed of the need for action? How does the team communicate its approvals? Effective communication within the team, along with an understanding of the required types and frequencies of communications, is critical for success.

At the same time, the project manager will work closely with the chosen software vendor or implementation partner to maintain project communications, set up regular project status meetings, review status reports and conduct other project-related activities.

Set a project schedule and budget planEvery project needs a detailed, resource-loaded project schedule that describes all the tasks that need to be completed, estimates the time those tasks will require and lists the team members responsible for completion. The project manager can then use this list as a baseline to measure progress. Factors such as time and resources—each of which involves expense—can be linked to the budget to help ensure each element of the project remains within its projected cost as well as on its schedule.

Proper scheduling is important to achieving business results, as the need for improved facilities management may be tied to specific events such as a corporate merger or the planning of a new building. Regular status reports should synchronize the day-to-day events of the implementation with the planned schedule using information on issues such as issue/risk resolution tracking, anticipated completion dates, travel and budget.

Create procedures for governance and change controlIf the project does run out of time, money or resources, a decision-making process will be necessary to establish priorities for next steps. Procedures for project governance may also prove necessary to help resolve conflicts between team members. If disagreements occur over priorities or the use of resources— for example, if the project begins to concentrate solely on technology to the detriment of achieving its business goals—a governance plan established ahead of time can determine how the issue can be escalated and who is responsible for resolving the conflict so work can move ahead smoothly.

Establish organizational change managementA key to the success of every project is helping the end-user community understand and buy into the changes that will affect their processes and work. It is necessary, as a result, to put into place a change management plan from the beginning of the project to help ensure end-user support and help ensure they are comfortable with new processes and technology. This support is critical, as end users typically care little about underlying


technology or IT management. Rather, they are concerned with the tools and processes technology provides to help them achieve business goals.

2. Analysis and design phaseTo ensure the facilities management solution in fact supports the business case for its use, it is critical to keep business opera-tions and goals front and center from the very beginning of the implementation. Considering business needs from the outset and including a business focus in the design of the project will help assure that the solution does not lean so heavily toward technol-ogy concerns that it overlooks its ultimate intent to improve business outcomes.

Evaluate the impact of implementationTo kick off the analysis and design phase, the project team must first determine which components of facilities management are most important to the organization’s strategic business vision and which it should implement—facilities space management, strategic facilities planning, workplace performance manage-ment, move management and/or workplace reservation manage-ment. If it is necessary to address more than one area to support business goals, the team will need to determine the initial solutions to be deployed and the sequence to follow based on the impact each solution can have on business performance.

As part of the analysis and design phase, the project team will also need to meet with the software vendor to review project requirements, discuss business processes and address questions or issues. The team will need to work with the vendor to create a draft project schedule and draft project plan based on the defined requirements of the project.

Determine functional designNext, the software vendor will examine and explore the organi-zation’s system needs in order to determine design gaps between internal processes and new system capabilities—and align the facilities management solution’s new capabilities with business

goals. Choosing a facilities management solution with a robust standard configuration—one that sets the bar for internal processes going forward—can minimize the need for extensive system configuration. Together, the organization’s project team and the vendor can work out priorities, issues, workflow designs, portals, application security, system interfaces and more—the elements that affect both IT and end users in support of business goals—and also work out a strategy for data mapping and data migration. This phase typically results in a functional design document for the organization to approve.

A major US university wanted to improve its data gathering and data accuracy for capital planning, facility operations and reporting. Using an automated facilities management solution across more than 250 research, administrative and academic departments, it integrated facilities management software with other campus-wide s ystems, supporting classroom scheduling, grant tracking, financial systems and more to eliminate redundant and inconsistent data, reduce duplicative data entry and improve data reliability.

3. Data preparation phaseData is at the core of both facilities management and the business outcomes that management solutions are designed to support. It is critical, as a result, that the implementation team pay careful attention to the processes that support utilizing existing data in the new system as well as those generating new facilities-related data and the business insights.

Prepare/collect dataAfter the organization and software vendor have collaborated to create a data-mapping and data-migration strategy and have agreed on the functional design of the facilities management solution, it is time for data preparation. The duration of this

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process depends on the size and complexity of the organization’s facilities portfolio. It is typically not a fast process, but it is the foundation for establishing facilities management capabilities.

This is the point at which the project team asks pointed questions and captures fundamental technical and business information that is a prerequisite for establishing management capabilities. For example: Which buildings and other assets will be managed by the facilities solutions? Which areas—for exam-ple, cost recovery or facility utilization—should get priority for study and management? Which management functions can have the greatest impact on business operations?

This pre-deployment phase is also the point at which the technical team should scrub legacy data that has been identified for migration to the new system. It is the time for ensuring that servers and the relational database planned for use with the management system comply with the system’s technical require-ments. The team should install, configure, test and ensure that the database is fully functional.

Validate data integrityOnce the data has been collected, the project team must validate its integrity. The team should verify the accuracy and relevance of its facilities data, including drawings, by testing or auditing a portion of it—ideally, at least 10 percent of the data—against original records to make sure the information is complete (all necessary data is captured) and accurate (all necessary data is correct). This will help determine whether it is safe to migrate the existing data from the previous system, or whether it should be abstracted manually. If the data needs to be manually abstracted from the original drawings or other records, third-party firms can help with this task. However, note that manual data abstraction will extend the implementation timeline.

4. Development phaseDevelopment of the facilities management software is not entirely about technology—it must always align with the need to meet the organization’s business goals and support the business case for implementing the solution.

Design/build alpha systemThere will be some natural overlap between the data preparation and software development phases. While the organization is collecting and creating its asset inventory, the software vendor will work on designing and building an alpha version, or proto-type, of the management application. The alpha version should meet the requirements of the agreed-upon functional design—inclusive of as-shipped and configured capabilities. As such, it will need to be heavily tested before the production version is created and deployed later in the process. The number of alpha-system build reviews that occur during this phase will depend on the amount and complexity of configurations required of the system. The configured application that results should support both the business functionality and the technical integrations necessary to support goals for improved operations.

Load/migrate data subsetThe project team will need to work with the software vendor to load/migrate an initial subset of the collected lease data— IBM recommends five to 10 percent of the total amount—into the development environment. Once loaded, the team and vendor will test the functionality of about 10 percent of this data subset, to verify that everything is working properly and as specified. The project team will provide signoff to the software vendor on the testing and acceptance once satisfied with the results.

5. Test and transition phaseTesting the facilities management system is key to assuring that it can provide its necessary technical and business functionality. Training staff in using the system, however, is also critical, not only to assure that they know how to use the new solution but also to obtain the necessary buy-in to the operational change the new solution represents—so they will use the solution in the intended manner to help achieve the desired business results.

Test alpha systemDuring the test and transition phase, which occurs in the development environment, the software vendor will run multiple tests on the alpha system.


First, it will perform unit testing—in which it tests the source code, computer program modules, control data, and usage and operating procedures to ensure that everything functions correctly.

Next, it will perform system testing on the complete facilities management solution to evaluate compliance with previously specified requirements. If the solution integrates with other critical systems, system testing includes integration testing, which detects inconsistencies between integrated software units in the development environment.

The software vendor will then review and approve the results of the unit testing and system testing against predetermined use cases.

Next is user-acceptance testing (UAT), perhaps the most critical testing thus far because, during UAT, a few software end users—usually trained members of the project team—test the alpha system to make sure it can handle required tasks in real-world scenarios, according to defined specifications. This phase of testing is also designed to help gain end-user buy-in for the new system. Once UAT is complete and any issues have been addressed by the software vendor, the project team will approve the alpha system for use in developing the production system.

Train initial user groupApplication training can now begin. The software vendor should facilitate essential software training for a select user group—typically a few members of the project team—who will subsequently train the rest of the organization’s users. These “train-the-trainer” classes should cover how to use the new facil-ities management software, as well as policy, practice or process changes that will result from the facilities management imple-mentation. The users who are trained during this step can also help perform testing on the full data load after the production system is in place, in the next phase of the process.

An international supplier of electronics testing equipment used a facilities management solution to help implement an alternative workplace strategy. The result increased the workplace use ratio from one employee to 1.5 employees for every workstation.

6. Deployment phaseAt this point, the facilities management solution takes the neces-sary steps to “go live” as a functioning part of the organization’s infrastructure for helping meet its business goals.

Install production system and perform full data loadOnce the alpha system has been completely installed, tested, adjusted as needed and approved, the software vendor will install the production version of the facilities management solution. Then, when deployment is complete, the full data load can begin.

The full data load can consist of items as widely ranging as CAD floor plans, employee and departmental assignments to workspaces, performance targets for facility utilization, meeting-room requirements, move project planning templates, or forecast space requirements over time. The software vendor will typically assist with this step to help speed the data entry and smooth the process.

Performing ongoing, post-deployment activitiesFollowing facilities management implementation, the organiza-tion will need to continue certain tasks on an ongoing basis, taking advantage of post-deployment support provided by the software vendor as much as needed. The previously trained project team members can begin systematically training staff on how to use the implemented facilities management component(s), as well as on any updated policies, practices or processes. The organization should continue to create new reports, controls and processes as needed to facilitate effective facilities and asset management.

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ConclusionOrganizations that implement facilities management solutions can achieve significant advantages in their abilities to improve business outcomes by better controlling their facilities and physical assets. But advantages do not accrue on their own—organizations need to plan implementation processes carefully, conduct activities and resources with a focus on business goals, and follow through on procedures designed to smooth the way to on-time, on-budget, fully functioning facilities management deployments.

IBM can support facilities management deployment in two ways—with the comprehensive portfolio of IBM® TRIRIGA® solutions for facilities management, and with the extensive expertise and experience of IBM Global Business Services® gained from hundreds of successful software implementations.

TRIRIGA solutions deliver facilities management software to increase facilities utilization and improve the effectiveness of a distributed workforce. They identify underutilized facilities and workspaces that can be used more effectively to help reduce costs.

For more informationTo learn more about IBM TRIRIGA solutions for facilities management, please contact your IBM representative or IBM Business Partner, or visit: ibm.com/software/products/us/en/subcategory/SW22A

To learn more about IBM Global Business Services for IBM TRIRIGA, visit: ibm.com/services/us/gbs/ais/tririga-services.html

Additionally, IBM Global Financing can help you acquire the software capabilities that your business needs in the most cost-effective and strategic way possible. W e’ll partner with credit-qualified clients to customize a financing solution to suit your business and development goals, enable effective cash management, and improve your total cost of ownership. Fund your critical IT investment and propel your business forward with IBM Global Financing. For more information, visit: ibm.com/financing

http://www.ibm.com/software/products/us/en/subcategory/SW22A

htp://www.ibm.com/services/us/gbs/ais/tririga-services.html

http://www.ibm.com/financing

© Copyright IBM Corporation 2014

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Produced in the United States of America March 2014

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This document is current as of the initial date of publication and may be changed by IBM at any time.

The client examples cited are presented for illustrative purposes only. Actual performance results may vary depending on specific configurations and operating conditions.

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1 Michael Bloch, Sven Blumberg and Jürgen Laartz, “Delivering large-scale IT projects on time, on budget and on value,” McKinsey and Company, October 2012. http://www.mckinsey.com/insights/business_technology/ delivering_large-scale_it_projects_on_time_on_budget_and_on_value

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