In the busy world of arts and culture, your needs can change quickly. What you require from a venue and event management system, or your booking processes, can change and you may have to look for a new solution to accommodate these evolving needs. There is no hiding from the fact we’re facing a time of uncertainty regarding funding, so any investment in a new system needs to pay dividends for your organization. And quickly!
Correctly configuring and implementing a new system will prove essential for saving you precious time and money. A great implementation, with guided training for your team, will result in a greatly empowered team. Having buy-in from your team on your new system right from the beginning, thanks to a good implementation, will secure endless benefits. Getting fast return on investment, reducing the reputational risk of booking errors, and the power of the business intelligence gathered in your new system will be invaluable.
Let’s get on the road to a great implementation!
Laying the foundation
Arts and culture organizations are complex, and we understand this firsthand! In our decades of experience, guiding implementations for organizations of all shapes and sizes we’ve found that implementation projects rarely go to plan unless we lay steady foundations first. We know that successful implementations rely on four main working pillars:
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- Breaking tasks down into accessible chunks
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- Intentional and productive prioritization
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- Realistic timeframes and goal management
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- Allocating tasks to the right team members at the right time
These pillars are all essential to maximizing productivity and mitigating the impact of change. Consider these four pillars when working through the rest of the steps below to ensure you retain great foundations for your implementation project.
Building the right team
The implementation teams we build have enormous impact on the success or failure of the implementation, and thus the ultimate return on investment from your new system.
There are key components that make a great team. Working together to achieve these can mitigate the risk of any issues in implementing a new system, such as ArtifaxEvent. Through our years of delivering new systems to many a team dynamic, we’ve met incredible groups of people that work brilliantly together, and these teams have these key components in common:
Accountability
Each team member must have a clear understanding of their role and what they are individually accountable for. This is the key to a team member meeting their goals for timescale and budget.
Agility
We think project teams work best when kept small and agile. Large teams can be inertial, with the risk of decision paralysis. Small, agile teams can communicate easily, make decisions quickly, implement, test, and then improve.
Set Goals
Having clear, defined goals will keep your team on track. Using SMART goals will give clear identification of the deadlines, metric for success and keep the tasks realistic. You’ll waste time if you are unclear when setting goals and could potentially foster an anxious working environment as team members are unsure what is expected of them. Be SMART – specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and timely.
Time-Bound
Your implementation won’t last forever and neither should the team formed to complete it. Your project team will work best when time-bound. Be sure to form with a clear remit, and then dissolve the team when the project is completed.
Decision-Making and Doing
A carefully considered balance of decisionmakers and doers will work wonders for your implementation’s success. Yes, it’s great when everyone in the room can make the calls, but are they the same people that will be using the system daily? Involving staff that will be the key users of your new system will reduce friction within your team, as they gain understanding of the context behind decisions. During implementation, having the users’ insight into your workflows will also be hugely beneficial for system configuration.
Building your system specification
You could be reading this looking for a new system, with systems already in place, but are reviewing how to improve your current use or figuring out how your systems could work better together. Whatever your position, the steps to the perfect system specification are the same.
Get to know your existing system
This is always the first step. Before considering other options, have a look around and explore what you’re already using. What tools are already at your fingertips? Systems are updated so frequently that you’re likely to have missed new features without realizing. Artifax for example, releases a product update each quarter with hot fixes if required and new developments. When reviewing your current workflows consider the following:
Task Management: Can you flag key tasks to specific users at a designated point in time?
Integrations: Can you send data between systems automatically? Or is it a manual process?
Automated Actions: Do you have automatic alerts that let users know about unexpected activity? (e.g. a cancellation or a change in resource requirements)
Scheduled Reporting: What does your current reporting framework look like? Do you manually generate your reports or are they scheduled and automatically send to specified users via email?
Exception Reporting: It’s worth not only reporting on what is happening, but also when data is missed that could be useful for other teams to know. Do you have custom reports designed to inform you when something has not happened?
Integrations: What does your ecosystem of solutions look like? Can you connect finances with ticketing systems? Or event information to staffing systems? When it comes to tools like integrations, big expense is not necessary! Think about what you would like your information workflows across all your systems to look like and look for systems with open APIs for ease of connection.
Planning your workflows
Now you’ve assessed what’s at your disposal with your current system, you can begin to plan your desired workflows! Based on our experience at Artifax, these are our top tips:
- Take time to assess processes and ensure your implementation is a collaborative project
- Don’t expect your new system to replace your processes – choose the system that aligns the closest to your needs
- Be prepared to adapt existing processes to better fit with new systems
- Consider your reporting requirements carefully
These steps ensure that everyone benefits from the changes made!
Consider how to train your users on the new system
When choosing your new system provider, carefully consider the support you are offered for your implementation and the training resources for new users. There are a variety of implementation methods used for software: from guided implementation to self-led implementation.
Guided implementation is the method available with Artifax. We believe working in partnership with us, to perfectly configure Artifax for your needs, results in a system built to your exact requirements. The system is then ready to be used from day one after your Go Live date. Our Professional Services team are all industry experts who have worked in arts and culture organizations. Having a complex understanding of your workflows really helps them in guiding you to make the right decisions for your needs.
The alternative to this is a self-led implementation, where you may be offered the use of a video library or a resource portal with self-help guides for configuration and set up. If you are making your decision with a heavy emphasis on the financial cost, it is also worth considering the time and energy cost for your team. Is it time efficient to have your users configuring a new system using online resources, especially when compared to a guided implementation with an industry specialist?
Guided implementation can of course be supported with tools such as the Artifax Help Centre, but self-led implementation could cause anxiety and apprehension which would result in low adoption and decreased return on investment.
After decades delivering industry-leading systems to industry-leading organizations, we know what works when it comes to implementation! The advice given in this article is relevant regardless of which system provider you choose but, if you would like to speak to us about the implementation process for Artifax, please contact our Sales team.