Lesson 1

Creating a Testing and Deployment Plan

10-7

Important

It is extremely important that your pilot deployment not include technologies or

configuration settings that you haven’t previously tested in a lab setting. Modifying the deploy-

ment between the lab phase and the pilot phase contaminates the results of the pilot project.

If problems occur, you might not be able to determine whether they result from a fault in your

original configuration or from the changes you made after testing.

Creating a Pilot Deployment Plan

As with the testing phase, planning and preparation are crucial to a successful pilot

deployment. The users in the pilot program are not as rigidly controlled in their activ-

ities as the lab testers are, so there is no need to create specific user procedures. After

all, the object of the pilot deployment is to have users work as they normally do. What

does require careful planning, however, is the selection of the pilot users and creating

a support system for them.

Selecting Users for a Pilot Deployment

There are three factors to consider when selecting the users who will participate in

your pilot deployment: the nature of the configuration parameters you are rolling out,

the users’ roles in the organization, and the users’ own capabilities. Depending on

what parameters you are testing, you might want to select a single workgroup or

department for the pilot plan, or you might want to select a cross-section of users

throughout the organization. A single group or department is easier to monitor and

troubleshoot, but a cross-section provides a better picture of the new configuration’s

effect on the entire network.

The users participating in a pilot plan should not be performing critical roles. The users

must be able to tolerate some down time, should problems occur, without unduly

affecting the company’s business or reputation. In addition, the users you select should

have temperaments that enable them to deal with problems without panic or hysterics.

Training Users and Support Staff

Your pilot plan should specify the training your selected users need to work with the

new configuration. For a pilot deployment of new security parameters, the user train-

ing might consist of nothing more than a new logon procedure, but if you are deploy-

ing new applications or operating systems, more extensive training might be necessary.

You can treat the user training as a dry run for the enterprise-wide deployment that is

to follow, so the pilot program should include a complete training plan, including a

curriculum, and identifying who will be performing the training and when.