Page 66 - Security Today, April 2021

CoverStory
• Engagement. These introductory meetings are also the time to build engagement and awareness of the technology across your whole organization: with your senior teams, your staff immediately responsible for the implementation, managers from other departments, and wider stakeholders including external agencies that you work with. While initial deployments are typi- cally focused on one or more specific objec- tives the organization wants to focus on, it’s important everyone has a solid under- standing of the depth and breadth of the solution, so they can gradually increase the value they drive from its deployment across the organization.
Those additional capabilities may not be taken advantage of for a few months, or even another year, but with successful tech introductions customers invariably look to extend and develop what they do. This extension of service scope is often the result of feedback and ideas generated either from frontline customer teams using the tech daily, or at the request of stakeholders they are working with.
Achieving Hassle-Free Roll-Out
Only after the project plan is agreed on are you ready for the deployment phase. The goal is to ensure that your roll-out is on- point and hassle-free. In this phase, it’s often helpful to ask your supplier to work more closely with significant stakeholders in your organization, for example coordi- nating between IT, marketing, security and senior executives. All these departments may have different ideas and agendas which need to be addressed, aligned, and sched- uled for a truly successful deployment.
You should verify your supplier is pre- pared and able to do this. At this stage, ask if your technology partner will assist your IT department with things like supporting the use of Single Sign-On (SSO) for users to log into your new solution with their exist- ing organization’s credentials and ensure full compliance with their data privacy standards.
A critical aspect of deployment is ensuring high levels of community engagement, so you should check how your supplier will help you with communications strategies and resources such as branded assets. Examples include digital signs, posters, and social media campaigns which you can use to drive up adoption through awareness and interest among members of staff, students, remote
workers, first response teams, support per- sonnel or patrol officers themselves.
As you move into full-scale operational use of your new service, it’s best not to tackle everything at once, but rather, to prioritize use-case applications that address your pain points and serve the needs of the most vul- nerable before expanding your capabilities.
The Importance of Measuring Success
As you move forward, it’s essential to mea-
sure how much, and how well, your team uses its new technology. Granular measure- ments will underpin your success by allow- ing you to see which functions your officers are making good use of, and which need more focus.
An effective way to achieve this is through a system of quarterly reports that let users drill down into Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), including the number of active users, the number and type of alerts triggered, average
14 campuslifesecurity.com | MARCH/APRIL 2021