A project delay

Sorry for the lack of posts, and thanks for your emails checking in.  We recently announced a delay to our Workday implementation, so I've been distracted.  The delay is due to many reasons, but some ideas to keep in mind if you are implementing:

1. Integrations take more time than you would think.  Many of our integrations, interfaces and reports are being developed offshore.  This is a model we currently use for PeopleSoft development as well.  However, I think timelines were quite tight and specs were late anyway.  I think the project would have been better served if things like calculated fields were centralized and designed up front, rather than having each developer to manually code these items, on each interface.  Many of these variables (active status, for example, or recreating ALPS as we're carrying forward that PS legacy of coding), should have just been available in a library to grab.
2. HR Transformation takes time.  I know HR Transformation is all the rage right now, and it's the basis for our implementation.  If we were only putting in Workday, that probably would have been possible, however, we're changing many of our HR processes and procedures in conjunction with the Workday implementation, taking advantage of Workday functionality.  As well, roles are being redefined in the post-Workday world, as part of a bigger organisational design activity.
3. We've all had to learn on the go.  While we've gone to WD training and have a skilled consultanting partner guiding us, I think the project was aggressively scoped, even taking out the HR organizational aspects.  If we were upgrading PSoft, the timeline would have been appropriate.  Trying to learn WD and making design/configuration decisions and then learning the impact of them and re-doing things took time.  I'm thinking future waves can follow a faster cadence, however, as we now are relatively up to speed on the software.

I know SaaS is supposed to have a quicker implementation timeline, but when making business process changes, you can't necessarily hurry along at a fast clip.  It's more than just implementing the software, especially when you go to a product like WD that has all this great functionality which turns your whole world upsidedown, compared with your current ways of doing business.