Streamline Your Windchill PLM Solution

The size of your team depends on the size of your organization, how many customizations your Windchill PLM solution has, and the complexity of your customizations. To ensure your Windchill PLM solution gets used and delivers value with fewer customizations, involve representatives of important end user groups throughout the project. Their insights will improve experience design, documentation, training, and change management.

We recommend forming two teams to carry out your de-customizations: a decision team and an execution team.

Decision Team

Form your decision team right away. They are your decision-makers and will analyze and plan how to streamline your Windchill PLM solution. Although their titles may differ, you'll need a combination of the following team members for the decision team:

Project Sponsor: Defines the scope, timeline, use case(s), goals, and key performance indicators. Serves as the project champion and is accountable for its success. Is responsible for generating support across the organization and will communicate why and how your Windchill PLM solution will change across the organization.

Project Manager: Ensures alignment across teams and is responsible for meeting deadlines, following strategy, and achieving goals throughout the life of the project.

Application Owner: Owns the application from the business side and is responsible for your Windchill PLM solution's internal roadmap, return on investment, and long-term success. Must be able to align the implementation with your business's key business objectives.

Application Manager: Responsible for the day-to-day execution and improvement of your Windchill PLM solution. Members of your organization's IT and compliance teams who can help implement and maintain the technology needed for your Windchill PLM solution. They also ensure it meets your organization's security, compliance, and license policies.

Organizational Change Manager: Cultivates support across all levels of the organization for streamlining customizations in your Windchill PLM solution. Communicates broadly and consistently about why and how your Windchill PLM solution will be different. Listens to employees' feedback and concerns about removing customizations. Should be passionate about Windchill PLM and all the advantages your organization will gain from streamlining customizations from Windchill PLM. This work may be shared among several individuals or a team.

Customization Expert: Understands or can investigate how and why the organization initially implemented the customizations.

One person may fill more than one of these roles, or several contributors may be assigned to each role. On a regular basis, your application owner, application manager, and organizational change manager should review your application customizations and decide if there are opportunities for standardization and optimization. These roles should work together to achieve streamlining your Windchill PLM solution. This can be accomplished through the synchronization of processes and functionalities of an application. Streamlining reduces complexity and offers benefits such as ease of integration and upgrade, improved performance, and better PTC Technical Support.

Execution Team

You'll also need an execution team to carry out the project. You may not need to fill these roles immediately. Ensure these team members have the time and resources to dedicate to this project. You may need their manager's approval. You'll need this team by the time you start to assess your current system.

Members of the decision team will be involved, and you'll also need:

Testing Team/Users: Creates test scripts and plans for the program. Is aware of the current business processes and will document changes made to business processes.

Users: There are two types of users:

• Power Users: Test the Windchill PLM solution and provide feedback. Also provide training and guidance to end users after Windchill PLM goes live. Power users have more experience, training, and advanced skills than typical end users. Their insights will improve experience design, documentation, training, and change management.
• End Users: Anyone who uses Windchill PLM for what it was created and deployed to do.

Business Process Consultant: Although not critical, they could help determine how to best use Windchill PLM with your business processes to improve efficiency and achieve your goals. Needs a thorough understanding of your organization and specific business processes as they exist today, experience with process modeling and the creation of future processes, and experience partnering with stakeholders to gather business requirements.

One person may fill more than one of these roles, or you may have several contributors assigned to each role. Depending on the size of your organization and your project, you may include people on your team from various locations across the business or around the world.

As you build your de-customization team, engage any employees who are interested in Windchill PLM and use it in their jobs. This will create early support and excitement, which will help maintain your momentum. Their feedback can be useful to ensure that the procedures are understandable.

Establish a governance board to set the direction for your de-customizations. The governance board will support the reasons for removing customizations and have the authority to make final decisions. If users propose a change that doesn't align with what customizations you decide to remove, the governance board has the authority to govern the direction of your de-customizations.

Establish a process to communicate, escalate, and resolve problems as they arise. By designating key decision-makers early in the project, you’ll be prepared to address issues quickly. Make sure the team understands everyone’s roles and responsibilities in the project and how decisions are made.

Questions to consider as you build your governance team:

• Who has the authority to make decisions?
• If an execution team member has an issue, how should they escalate it to someone with more authority?
• Who should individual contributors contact to resolve day-to-day issues?
• How can contributors get attention from leaders in a timely manner, if needed?
• How does work get approved? Who approves it?
• If two teams disagree, who makes the final decision?

Establishing a clear structure for managing issues will prevent delays.

Identify project stakeholders

Your project will benefit tremendously from leadership support. Cultivate support at various levels of your organization, from high-level business leaders to frontline workers. Ensure leaders communicate the importance of streamlining your Windchill PLM solution to their teams in regular forums and feedback sessions. Identify and engage various people across your organization to support your project. The right leaders may vary from business to business.

Leadership support also cultivates collaboration among the teams who use Windchill PLM across your organization. The more your teams interact, share best practices, and work together, the more engagement and support you'll generate. You’ll want to identify:

Corporate executives: Your most important stakeholder will be at the executive level. Identify a well-respected, well-connected executive who will advocate for streamlining your Windchill PLM solution on an ongoing basis. Engage executives in parts of the organization that your project will benefit.

Long-term support team: Identify the IT support staff, help desk staff, power users, and business stakeholders who will manage and support your Windchill PLM solution in the long term. This team will fix bugs, perform upgrades, and provide end users with support. The long-term support team is important to the success of the software and your return on investment. Involve them early and plan for training, documentation, and a smooth handoff.

To ensure that your streamlined version gets used and delivers value, involve representatives of important end user groups throughout the project. Their insights will improve experience design, documentation, training, and change management.

PTC and experienced partners can often fill gaps in skill sets and experience that you may not have available internally. Verify that the individuals you hire have the right skills and experience to help you meet your goals.