Safaricom went for the Large Bang / “Chilly Turkey” Method technique of system rollover with the brand new My OneApp, and that has not gone properly, with prospects wailing and complaining everywhere in the nation. The identical factor occurred with the Authorities and the SHA system, and many individuals ought to have discovered from that. There are various methods or methods to roll out a brand new system. It is vitally courageous to go for the direct cutover, or what’s also referred to as the Chilly Turkey Method. The cutover technique may be very easy: the complete system goes stay throughout the entire group at a single cut-off date. The outdated system is straight away switched off.
I can see why organisations select to make use of this strategy or technique. Chief amongst them is that it gives the quickest general timeline and quickest realization of advantages. It is usually easy and the most affordable to implement. After all Safaricom has assets, so I don’t assume they’d go for this strategy just because it’s low cost.
So why did Safaricom go for the Large Bang? I’ve no actual thought, however I believe it could possibly be inside stress on the tech staff. For instance, if the tech staff has been engaged on a system for some time and the launch or the implementation has been postponed a number of occasions, then the stress to have it prepared could be too excessive, making it onerous to make a case for different rollout methods. I do know I’ve talked about price chopping and dominated it out as a purpose, however there are situations the place even the richest firm in East and Central Africa wouldn’t wish to spend cash on a misplaced trigger. So this situation is just like the time issue talked about above. If a system is taking too lengthy and operating means above the unique funds, then once more the stress could be too excessive and the tech staff wouldn’t have room to counsel a dearer strategy.
Earlier than I come again to what different approaches Safaricom might have used, let me have a look at among the issues with the Safaricom My OneApp. The next are the areas the place Safaricom went flawed with their strategy:
Pressured Migration With out Discover
This, to my view, was the largest mistake. Many customers woke as much as discover their acquainted M-PESA app changed by a totally completely different interface with none prior warning or SMS notification. Nicely, this is able to have been okay if every part went easily, with prospects seeing some new cool options. However it’s a time bomb if issues aren’t okay, as has been the case with the Safaricom new My OneApp.
The standard means of doing it’s to add the replace on the app shops after which immediate customers to replace their apps. From core system updates on completely different telephones to completely different apps on app shops, persons are given an opportunity to replace their favorite apps when there are modifications.
Connectivity & SIM Restrictions
The brand new app launched inflexible necessities that broke the expertise for a lot of customers. And there are three issues beneath this:
Wi-Fi Points: Many customers reported that the app fails to perform correctly over Wi-Fi, typically demanding a Safaricom information connection to authenticate. On Twitter (X), @ImbayiK famous the irony that the app makes use of Wi-Fi to obtain itself however prevents customers from utilizing the identical Wi-Fi to really use it.
SIM Slot Dependency: There are widespread complaints that the app solely works if the Safaricom SIM is in Slot 1. For dual-SIM customers, this pressured a bodily {hardware} change simply to make use of the app.
Our beloved Diasporans: Kenyan customers overseas reported being locked out as a result of the app now requires a direct Safaricom community on the telephone, making it almost not possible to handle accounts from exterior the nation.
Information Loss
A significant technical oversight was the failure emigrate saved information. Many customers discovered that their fastidiously curated lists of Paybills, Until numbers, and frequent contacts vanished throughout the replace, forcing them to manually re-enter account numbers. I noticed so many individuals irritated due to this.
There are others, however the above three are essentially the most important challenges to the customers that I’ve seen many individuals complain about.
So as an alternative of the Large Bang strategy, what are the opposite methods that Safaricom ought to have used? I believe the most effective could be Parallel Adoption / Operating. On this case, the brand new system runs alongside the outdated one for a time frame. Customers function each till the brand new app is validated, then the outdated is decommissioned. The primary benefits of this strategy are:
Lowest danger: The outdated app acts as a security web with straightforward fallback.
Permits real-time comparability, information validation, and output checking.
Minimal disruption for customers.
Excessive confidence earlier than full switchover.
The opposite technique that makes extra sense is the Pilot / Take a look at Rollout. The brand new system is first carried out with a small, consultant group earlier than wider rollout. I suppose they did that internally, however the issue with inside rollout is what could possibly be described as an echo chamber issue. Folks have the identical views and are topic to the identical situations.
