IDEAS methodology

This is for:

Developer Business Analyst System Administrator

Coveo™ Professional Services (PS) teams employ a project management methodology called IDEAS when carrying out the implementation of a solution based on the Coveo Platform. The IDEAS methodology covers the key activities to complete for each project and can be easily integrated with any development framework or methodology.

INITIATE
the project 		DEFINE
the solution 		EXECUTE
the configuration 		APPRAISE
the results 		SUCCESS
with the solution

Hold kickoff

  • Introduce team members
  • Review business objectives
  • Review project scope
  • Determine success criteria
  • Start communication cadence

Start project

  • Share technical prerequisites
  • Draft detailed project plan

Hold workshops to review requirements and design solution

  • Review source systems
  • Define security and permissions
  • Design user interface inputs and outputs
  • Define data and metadata normalization requirements
  • Select AI models and strategies to implement
  • Select data to ground generative models

Set up non-production environment

Index data

  • Configure connectors
  • Configure indexing pipeline extensions
  • Implement security and permissions

Configure and integrate user interface components

  • Search and recommendations
  • Relevance generative answering
  • Usage analytics and data tracking

Tune relevancy and configure AI models

  • Query pipelines
  • Query suggestions
  • Automatic Relevance Tuning
  • Recommendations
  • Dynamic navigation experience
  • Relevance generative answering
  • Usage analytics and data tracking
  • Commerce or Service specific models

Test and tune solution

  • Test solution end-to-end
  • Support User Acceptance Testing
  • Resolve issues
  • Tune results, recommendations, and generative relevancy

Prepare go-live

  • Prepare deployment to production

Support Go-live

Provide hypercare support

Close project

  • Document solution implementation
  • Transfer knowledge with customer
  • Handover solution to Coveo Success and Support

The following tables provide a typical breakdown of responsibilities between the client and the PS project team. For each phase, an estimated percentage of efforts and typical duration are indicated. This information is meant to help plan the collaboration between PS and clients, but can also be useful to anyone looking to implement a Coveo-powered solution, such as system integration partners or clients own development teams.

Initiate the project

PS activities Expected from client

Hold project kickoff

  • Introduce team members
  • Review business objectives
  • Review scope
  • Determine success criteria
  • Start communication cadence

Start project

  • Share technical pre-requisites
  • Draft detailed project plan
  • Participate in kick-off meeting
  • Facilitate required collaboration with other teams (Business, IT, other projects)
  • Provide information and coordinate with other projects that may impact
  • Provide business objectives and success factors
  • Provide schedule and timeline constraints
Deliverables
  • Kick-off presentation
  • Project initiation requirements

Estimated effort: 2% of total hours

Typical duration: 1 week

Define the solution

PS activities Expected from client

Hold workshops to review requirements and design solution

  • Review source systems and data
  • Define security and permissions
  • Design user interface inputs and outputs
  • Define data and metadata normalization requirements
  • Select AI models and strategies to implement
  • Select data to ground Generative models

Set up non-production environment
  • Review and approve Project plan
  • Provide accounts, accesses, and other technical requirements outlined in Project initiation requirements
  • Coordinate required participation in requirements and design workshops
  • Provide user interface standards and requirements
  • Provide source system data understanding
  • Make decisions on design options and choices
  • Review and approve Solution design
Deliverables
  • Project plan
  • Solution design

Estimated effort: 15% of total hours

Typical duration: 2-4 weeks

Execute the configuration

PS activities Expected from client

Index data

  • Configure connectors
  • Configure indexing pipeline extensions
  • Implement security and permissions

Configure and integrate user interface components

  • Search and recommendations
  • Relevance Generative Answering
  • Usage analytics and data tracking

Tune relevancy and configure AI models

  • Query pipelines
  • Query suggestions
  • Automatic Relevance Tuning
  • Recommendations
  • Smart Snippets
  • Relevance Generative Answering
  • Commerce or Service specific models
  • Participate in project status meetings
  • Iteratively review results following data source configuration and indexing
  • Iteratively review results following user interface configuration and integration
  • Plan user acceptance testing and document test cases
  • Provide access to required technical resources to assist Coveo as required
Deliverables
  • Solution ready for Acceptance Testing

Estimated effort: 50% of total hours

Typical duration: 3-7 weeks

Appraise the results

PS activities Expected from client

Test and tune solution

  • Test solution end-to-end
  • Support User Acceptance Testing
  • Resolve issues
  • Tune results, recommendations, and generative relevancy

Prepare go-live

  • Prepare deployment to production
  • Lead and execute user acceptance testing
  • Report issues, assist troubleshooting, and retest
  • Report on relevancy and generative testing results
  • Provide solution acceptance
Deliverables
  • Deployment plan

Estimated effort: 25% of total hours

Typical duration: 3-5 weeks

Success

PS Expected from client

Support go-live

Provide hypercare support

Close project

  • Document solution implementation
  • Transfer knowledge with customer
  • Handover to Coveo Success and Support
  • Lead and execute production go-live
  • Participate in knowledge transfer
  • Measure results against success criteria
Deliverables
  • Solution blueprint

Estimated effort: 8% of total hours

Typical duration: 2 weeks