While customers are improving in their ability to plan, procure and prepare for the implementation of a Permitting and Licensing system, there are a few best practices that will benefit the less experienced state and local governments. 

In this series, I will share tips that I have learned from working with dozens of agencies as they evaluate solutions. Which will in turn help your organization be better prepared and enhance your experience of implementing a new Permitting and Licensing system.

This series will be broken into three parts as you see below, with this post covering the Pre-implementation phase.  You can access the first post on planning here, and second post on procuring here.

 

Preparing to Implement:  Building the Foundation for a Positive Implementation

You’ve done it!  The initial planning is all done, you made it through procurement, selected a vendor partner and product, and now the start of the implementation feels within reach.  Work may have calmed down a bit and the excitement may have worn off, but there is still work that can be done to help the implementation start in a positive way.  Here are some tips on what state and local governments can do to contribute to that:

  1. Organize Your Team:  Prior to the start of the implementation, the project team should be mostly (if not entirely) identified, made aware of their project roles and responsibilities, and have established lines for communications and collaboration.
  2. Take Time to Reassess Your Fees:  If you’re like most state and local governments, you either haven’t had the time to update your fees, or it was too cumbersome to update them in your legacy system (or both!).  Taking time to reassess all of the various fees ensures you are fully recognizing the appropriate revenue for services provided.  Something to consider:  some agencies decide to incentivize online submissions by assessing an additional fee for submissions made on-paper or in-person. 
  3. Get to Know Your Permitting and Licensing Product:  Reviewing product documentation – such as user guides, technical manuals, product videos, etc. – is all well and good, but agencies should have “product familiarization training” at the start of the implementation. This training should cover product capabilities, key terms and concepts, and system architecture, and will build a strong, foundational understanding of the product.
  4. Leverage the Experience of Your Implementation Team:  The team implementing your permitting and licensing product should have extensive industry experience (Oracle’s team has an average of 15+ years of experience in community development).  Explore the ways that you can leverage that experience to modernize your processes, standardize your forms, and reduce the number of application types where it makes sense to do so.  Doing this may make the long-term maintenance of those system “artifacts” much easier on agency staff well into the future.

 

Here’s what I recommend…

The time in-between procuring a solution and starting to implement it can feel like being in the eye of the storm.  There was just a lot of activity with procurement:  getting the solicitation written and released, managing vendors’ calls and demos, evaluating products, scope, and contract negotiations and more.  You will now likely have a slow-down until the implementation starts, and this period of time, whether it is days, weeks or even months, can be used to build a strong foundation to start the implementation.  You don’t have to prepare everything immediately but doing a little bit over time will save time and effort for you and your vendor partner down the road.

 

Learn More

Modern cloud technology solutions can help public-sector organizations overcome many of the challenges they face. By migrating to the cloud with Oracle Permitting and Licensing, organizations can embrace innovation and push the limits of what their employees and constituents have come to expect from their government.  Oracle is excited to be able to partner with government organizations on their journey to the cloud, and you can discover more about Permitting and Licensing product here.