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FAQ's
Does any data ship with the product?
Yes. Many system tables contain configuration
data, default classification data, help content, and Fast Answers demographics
and technical notes.
Do any documents ship with the product?
Yes. Technical notes, forms, templates and reports ship with Waypoint
and will be installed in the document repository during the initial deployment.
Who needs to participate during planning and deployment on the client side?
No question, client participation is required for a successful deployment to
be expected. We ask for a clear management sponsor, at least one "user guru"
in whom we can continuously invest and in-house IT staff liason consensus and
coordination. Data and document migration can be very labor intensive and is
typically most cost-effective with the combined efforts of both teams. We may
need to prepare "data grooming tasks" that we'd want to task off to volunteer
client staff.
How long will all this take?
That depends on you. We have an application that
is ready "out of the box" that can literally be deployed within a single week
from the time we first meet. The need for additional time stems from the likelihood
that your firm will want to review existing workflow procedures and document
management techniques. Larger decision making committees typically take longer
to deliberate and more historical data and document migration that is deemed
appropriate takes longer to process. Software customization must follow sound
software engineering processes to be trustworthy.
What hidden costs exist?
Changes. All changes for any reasons significantly
increase overall project costs. In general, poor planning yields a low return.
"Ready, Fire, Aim" is a humorous, though serious, teaching lesson in most engineering
curricula.
What can go wrong?
The two great Doomsday scenarios are that historical data
is incorrectly migrated without any backup and that poor planning has caused
a major disruption in the ongoing operations of the firm. Both of these outcomes
are avoidable with sound planning.
Are there secondary advantages to making employee role changes?
No doubt. Adopting
Waypoint is making a major upgrade to your central nervous system. Supervision
will become streamlined and employee evalutions will become quantitative. This
will be a great opportunity to advance under-utilized talent and to begin to
sunset senior staff members not likely to embrace this latest change.
How will my employees react?
Many employees will be affected by this deployment. They need to be credited
for the extra effort they will end up providing and hopfully they can
be brought on board in terms of the "cause." Fast Answers is very appreciative
of these crucial efforts and likes to personally reward those most involved
with a day sail on the bay after deployment. Some will "get it" and some
will not. That may be an early proxy for who should be given the greatest
new opportunities for advancement.
How good is Fast Answers?
Fast Answers is very good. We bring decades of relavent
experience and rely on mature technologies. We are incorporated as a "C" corp
in Delaware and boast an impressive board of directors. We teach and practice
the Software Maturity Model of the Software Engineering Institute of Carnegie
Mellon University. We are in it for the long haul.
Can we change our minds later?
Of course. None of our data or document stores
are proprietary. We rely on Microsoft's SQL Sever to store our data in a self-documented
object-oriented relational database. All documents are stored in their native
file formats on a production file server under your management. Even document
templates are potentially reusuable as we support common industry document formats
such as Microsoft Word & Excel, Visio and HTML-based email.
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