Dissertation Series - CRISP DM Step Six Deployment

Plan deployment

Deploying new software/solutions in an organisation requires a plan in order to avoid any issues or pitfalls; this could include raising awareness/allaying concerns amongst effected staff (Clark, 2012).  A deployment could also be carried out in a number of ways;-

Parallel adoption

The new system is run alongside existing systems, this does however mean that in some cases the effort is duplicated, although conversely if any issues are encountered or even if the new system completely fails then the old system is still in place (Weaver, 2004 p.232).

Phased adoption

This is where functionality of the new system is slowly phased in and teething problems emerge gradually rather than in one massive raft of changes (Weaver, 2004 p.232).

Pilot adoption

The pilot approach involves selecting a number of staff or a specific area of the business and introducing the system there, with the aim of gaining feedback and experience with the new systems to apply it when rolling out the new system to the rest of the organisation (Weaver, 2004 p.232).

Big bang adoption

The big bang approach is where a new system is introduced and replaces an existing system immediately with no crossover or where a new system (where an existing system is not in place) is introduced to the entire organisation in one phase.  Where existing systems are replaced using the big bang approach there can be issues encountered where the new system fails and there is no system in place to support the business activity (Weaver, 2004 p.232).

Plan monitoring and maintenance

The next sub-step involves putting controls in place so that any changes likely to affect the model are considered and documented (The Modelling Agency, 2000 p.33), an example of this would be changing the ways in which data is recorded.

Produce final report

A report is produced that documents the outcomes and products of the project (The Modelling Agency, 2000 p.33).

Review project

As with any development project a final review allows for lessons learnt during the project to be discussed and documented (OGC, 2005 p.333), this can mean that future projects take these into account and avoid making the same mistakes twice (The Modelling Agency, 2000 p.33).