Expert tips to unleash Lotus Notes Rationalization

Lotus Notes has historically been a very powerful tool for any major enterprise. The intent of this article is to share my experience rationalizing Lotus Notes applications and group emails. There are many companies struggling with the management, maintenance, and support of Lotus Notes databases.

Even a well maintained Lotus Notes infrastructure can benefit from a comprehensive application rationalization effort. In this article I will discuss the plan and path to rationalize Lotus Notes.

Prior to initiating any rationalization effort, it is extremely important to obtain top executive buy-in. You may also experience mid-level management resistance to rationalization. Defining the project scope is critical to both its acceptance and success. This scope should be agreed to by the enterprise, and all sponsors.

A complete Lotus Notes application inventory should be created. This is the 2nd most important aspect of rationalization. This will help you prepare the final plan of action. There are multiple companies (e.g. Casahl) that can assist with the collection of metadata relevant to your Lotus Notes landscape. The information gathered should include application last accessed by the users. The 3rd most critical item is to identify application business owners.

Once the above items have been addressed, the actual work can begin. Continuing our numbering sequence, the 4th order of business is to assemble the team and develop a rationalization plan. Depending on the scope of the rationalization, it may be necessary to have multiple regional project managers, with a well-defined communication action plan. This plan should be all-encompassing, and address questions such as usage data classification, and future plans by the application business owner.

All of the above has been in preparation for the most critical phase, the infamous ‘scream test’.  This activity involves disabling specific application(s) for approximately 60 days (or as your plan deems feasible). In general terms, the scream test is most appropriate for applications that have not been used or accessed in at least 6 months. This single most effective activity will quickly determine the actual use of the application. All levels of management and stakeholders should be kept apprised of these activities, and be forewarned of any potential issues that might arise. A strong mitigation and/or roll-back plan should be defined prior to any interruption of service. With proper planning and preparation, this phase of testing will be extremely effective, and any issues manageable. Poorly planned and executed, this type of testing has the potential to end any further efforts, not to mention careers. Please do not underestimate the importance of good planning and communication prior to any intentional disruption of services.

In any Notes installation of size, the aforementioned scream test will consist of several iterations, and be conducted in parallel with the decommissioning of servers and/or applications. The specifics of this phase are dependant upon your company’s Notes installation, and requirements.

To summarize the steps:

1.      Define initial scope and get executive buy in –Critical step, pay special attention

2.      Inventory Lotus Notes – Success is in detail of this activity

3.      Define scope in detail – As critical as step #1

4.      Team plan and execution plan – See through all issues during execution, staff for all eventualities, at times expects long working hours

5.      Design communication plan and scream test – There is no issue in over communication. Awareness is key to success

6.      Execute scream test – The easiest part if 1 through 5 are done correctly

7.      Decommission applications – Second most easiest part of the plan

8.      Consolidate servers in parallel with step #7 – Third most easiest part of the plan

9.      Re do step # 5 through step #8 till end of rationalization – Repeat

Always remember, you need to have a time bound plan otherwise you will be infinitely waiting to complete rationalization. It is vital to have a quality communication plan that is repeatable and could reach all IT and business owners of the Lotus Notes Applications. At the end of the exercise you will end up with smaller number of actually used applications that need to be migrated to a newer platform or retained as business critical. If retained, you will have a business case to create a smaller foot print, more upgraded and dynamic Lotus Notes infrastructure that could be sustained. Otherwise, you might have a business case to move all the remaining applications from Lotus Notes to a newer platform as your company desires.