Implementing the solution

Once the customer has selected the optimal route based on their business needs, we can start constructing our design. At this stage, you will be facing different obstacles, as implementing the POC in a development or QA environment might vary from production. Things that worked in QA or development may now fail in production, and different variables might be in place; all these things only arise at the implementation stage, and you need to be aware that, in a worst-case scenario, it might mean changing a large amount of the initial design.

This stage requires hands-on work with the customer and the customer's environment, so it is of utmost importance to ensure that the changes you make won't affect the current production. Working with the customer is also important, because this will familiarize their IT team with the new solution; this way, when the sign-off is done, they will be familiar with it and its configuration.

The creation of an implementation guide is one of the most important parts at this stage, since it will document each step and every minor configuration made to the solution. It will also help in the future in case an issue appears and the support team needs to know how it was configured in order to be able to solve the problem.