A Bridge Over Troubled Water: Problem Management During Implementation

Abstract

The University of Wisconsin System spent two (long!) years implementing Primo with Voyager, and then before we even caught our collective breath, began implementing Alma. We learned a great deal from our Primo implementation and had much better coordination and project management going into Alma. One of the more difficult aspects of our implementations was managing the sheer volume of problem reports to investigate: questions from training and testing, configuration adjustments, functionality issues, and “charming quirks” of a new system. Our difficulties with display logic and resource sharing were in a class unto themselves, and needed a great deal of troubleshooting attention. We needed to manage all this information at the campus and consortial level in a coordinated way. We will discuss from both the campus and consortial perspective how we harnessed our resources – tools, communication, and expertise – to bring order to chaos. The presenters have been involved in UW-System groups through implementation as well as in production, and have been or continue to be the Alma project leaders for their respective institutions.