Oracle Cloud Quality Standards

Cloud Customer Journey with Cloud Quality Standards

• Milestone 1: Vendor of choice

  • Vendor of choice

    • This pivotal milestone validates solutions and aligns all parties on the desired outcomes. All stakeholders finalize the scope, define desired capabilities, and establish key business outcomes and KPIs to ensure alignment from the start.

  • Milestone Objectives

    • The customer validates the proposed modules, functionality, and technical architecture.
    • All parties should agree on “what good looks like” early on, including the desired business outcomes, major KPIs, new capabilities, and target engagement across the customer’s organization.

• Milestone 2: Contract

  • Contract

    • Contracting is the point at which both the customer and Oracle make a formal commitment.
    • At this stage, all product demos should be completed, and major architecture, the bill of materials, and overall scope should be agreed.
    • Customers should also consider the impact of the implementation on integrations, data, the business, and non-Oracle systems when determining the scope and building the roadmap. The path forward for the upcoming implementation (including an implementation roadmap, SI selection, and so on) should be agreed on by all stakeholders.
    • Contracting marks the beginning of the mobilization phase—the ramp-up to the program kickoff.

• Milestone 3: Kickoff

  • Kickoff

    • A program kickoff meeting is held to complete the mobilization phase.
    • This single meeting includes all stakeholders affiliated with the program, and its purpose is to review all the comprehensive preparation that should be in place to begin delivery.
    • T-minus guidelines are suggested and should be agreed as part of program governance.

  • Milestone Objectives

    • Confirm that all the elements needed for the entire program are mobilized or identified in the strategy before starting the program.
    • Lay the foundation for continuous innovation, adoption, and business optimization following the go-live.

• Milestone 4: High-level design

  • High-level design

    • This milestone confirms that the overall design and strategy for major key design decisions are in place. The high-level global design is finalized, and depending on the complexity of the implementation, workshopping or initial prototyping may begin.

  • Milestone Objectives

    • Confirm that the overall design and strategy for major key design decisions are in place.
    • Complete high-level global design (80/20 rule).

• Milestone 5: Detailed design

  • Detailed design

    • With agile-oriented delivery, design, building, and some testing occur across many iterations. It’s essential to have visibility into the velocity of progress against the plan.
    • Burn charts illustrate a program’s actual delivery against its plan and reveal how much work is left and if the team is on track to complete its goals.

  • Milestone Objectives

    • Confirm the build of all application components and integrations is complete.
    • Lay a foundation for the completion of business change-impacts, data cleansing and governance, process validation, policy sign-off, and so on.

• Milestone 6: System integration testing

  • System integration testing

    • Once all the iterative prototyping is complete, all the various components of the program, including Oracle and non-Oracle systems, operational teams, refreshed data, processes, and so on, are brought together to perform end-to-end tests.

  • Milestone Objectives

    • Validate the end-to-end solution.
    • Run tests that link processes, data, technology, interfaces, and other components from end to end.
    • Validate test data sets throughout testing.
    • Successfully perform period close process(es).

• Milestone 7: User acceptance testing (UAT)

  • User acceptance testing (UAT)

    • Once SIT is complete, representatives from all impacted business functions and stakeholders are invited to validate the system.
    • The test environment is refreshed again, and various components of the program, including Oracle and non-Oracle systems, operational teams, refreshed data, processes, and so on, are brought together again to perform end-to-end tests—only now, the end users drive the show and complete a dress rehearsal of all end-to-end functions prior to the go-live.

  • Milestone Objectives

    • Have users validate that the technology will support real-world business use cases from the go-live.
    • Run tests that confirm processes, data, technology, interfaces, and other components are working together seamlessly from end to end.
    • Validate test data sets throughout testing.
    • Successfully perform period close process(es).

• Milestone 8: Cutover

  • Cutover

    • This is arguably the most crucial point of the program. Here, we turn off the old systems and transition to the new ones.
    • For large programs, it’s critical to conduct a real-time, end-to-end cutover dress rehearsal prior to starting the actual cutover.

  • Milestone Objectives

    • Validate that all the elements required for the cutover are mobilized.
    • Successfully execute a real-time, end-to-end cutover dress rehearsal—including all business and technical elements—prior to starting the actual cutover.
    • Apply lessons learned from the dress rehearsal prior to executing the actual cutover.

• Milestone 9: Go-live

  • Go-live

    • Risk associated with the go-live is considerably mitigated by full adherence to Oracle Cloud Quality Standards.
    • The organization has been fully mobilized, rehearsed, and capacity tested for day-to-day operations.
    • The cloud support target operating model (TOM) has been fully mobilized, rehearsed during UAT, and activated for production from day one of the go-live.
    • Full assessment and trackable business adoption of quarterly updates are now a normal part of the rhythm of ongoing operations.
    • Day-to-day business requests and any ongoing system work are seamlessly folded into the cloud support TOM.
    • Continuous innovation and organizational agility are now the norm.

  • Milestone Objectives

    • Business ownership of the entire Oracle ecosystem on day one is the ideal overall objective.