SAP Upgrade

Catalyst Interactive is nearing the completion of the second phase of a blended learning solution for the Department of Defence to facilitate user transition to their upgraded financial information management system, ROMAN, a product based on SAP. The system manages Defence's budget of almost AU$20 billion and assets of over AU$55 billion and is being upgraded by CSC Australia. The upgraded system will enable Defence to track their five million annual financial transactions and to report to international financial reporting standards.

As a consequence of this upgrade some 5,000 internal users of ROMAN across 300 locations needed to be trained in the new system. This is the largest SAP upgrade planned in the Federal Government market. The upgrade is scheduled to be completed by August 2008.

An early training needs analysis indicated users required a blended learning solution with an emphasis on elearning and performance support components rather than face-2-face training. CSC appointed Catalyst Interactive to provide this training because of our successful track record in designing, creating, and deploying large scale training solutions.

Working with both the internal experts at CSC and the Defence ROMAN upgrade team, Catalyst devised a blended training solution that provided both the training materials needed for the change management issues associated with the implementation of the ROMAN upgrade, and a long-term ROMAN training solution. Our solution is based on Catalyst's Workforce Readiness Model and involves components that inform, prepare and support users during the transition and beyond.

The first stage of the project was completed in less than 4 months with Catalyst Interactive producing 35 hours of eLearning, 105 hours of ILT materials for f2f delivery and over 300 live in-application cue cards and job aids.

This rather large undertaking was delivered ahead of schedule due to our use of rapid eLearning tools and superior project management methodologies including distributed workflow capabilities that seamlessly connect the client and development team.

'I am proud to say Catalyst have achieved a bench mark for eLearning courses in Defence in terms of accuracy and practicality. This course is not just a translation from the old face-to-face course to an electronic medium, but it is also an overhaul to provide accurate and practical content for everyday users' said Richard Wong, ROMAN Trainer Department of Defence.

Since the release of the ROMAN upgrade training there have been over 60,000 course completions via Defence's LMS, Campus, the most successful online training event Defence has ever experienced. Evaluations following the first round of training have guided the development of the training for the second phase of the upgrade process.

This project serves to prove our proposition that Catalyst's strengths in learning systems, coupled with our proven ability to manage the people and the processes, will deliver a successful large scale system implementation.

SAP Australia recently announced that the Department of Defence was joint winner of the 2007 SAP Award of Excellence for Best Upgrade, on the basis of the complexity of the upgrade and the response provided by the training solution to the considerable change management challenge.

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