As before, the Project Plan keeps everyone on track.
One of the key decisions is whether you are performing a flashed cut or a phased cut. In a flash cut, all of the subscribers in the company are cutover to Cisco Unity at one time. One advantage of this approach is you do not have to account for short term, temporary connectivity between the new Cisco Unity voicemail and the legacy voicemail systems. One disadvantage is the potential impact of problems one the first day or so of the actual implementation.
Phased cuts allow for orderly, discrete cutovers. You can also work out the kinks in your processes early on. This could be an advantage if dealing with customers spread out over multiple sites in multiple locations. One downside is having to coordinate how messages will be exchanged between Cisco Unity and legacy systems during the transition. Another disadvantage is phased cutovers tend to lengthen the overall project timeline.
Your project plan should identify risks, escalation plans and back out procedures. It should also list the key business units that need to be watched closely.
The communication plan for getting information out to the subscriber community should be complete at this time.
