Contingency for change management was liberally doled out during the pilot phase of the project. Carroll and Spiering both singled out the phased approach to the project as a key factor in keeping the project on schedule and headed toward success. The size of a pilot project need only be approximately 10 percent of the entire system, but it must be industrial-strength with all the bells and whistles, advised Carroll. The pilot gives people a check point to make sure this is what they really want. It also brings a certain momentum to the project.
People see what they are getting and suddenly want it.
In late 1994, DLI completed installation of the 500-seat document imaging system at its headquarters in Olympia. The initial project was completed under budget and ahead of schedule. More importantly however, it began reducing the time it took to process claims from weeks to barely a day. As a result, cases are being processed faster, returning workers to their jobs quicker. Taking the knowledge she picked up during the initial phases of the project, Spiering is now the department's imaging system customer lead representative for a new phase of project management, one that will eventually put imaging into DLI's 20 district offices around the state.