It has been noted by veterans of successful system implementations that testing and other conference room pilot activities took much more time than originally planned, but that it was worth it. Some of these same people noted that it was necessary to run through the CRP more than once, in order to incorporate lessons learned into another try(s). Some unsuccessful project teams have remarked that they should have spent more time on these.

We have found that almost nobody initiates these on their own unless they have been exposed to them before or unless someone experienced helps them introduce the process to the project. In fact, there is sometimes active resistance or indifference from some of the uninitiated, who feel that the approach would waste too much time. While not intuitive, this and other CRP approaches are found to be logical, easily understood and accepted once tried with an open mind.

The Conference Room Pilot is the single most effective way we know of to truly learn and understand a system for evaluation, education, testing and implementation planning purposes.

This article is also available on our website: PROACTION – Generating Best Practices. It is an excerpt of a paper originally written by George Miller, Founder of PROACTION. It has been modified and updated by Paul Deis, PROACTION CEO.