The First Week
What to watch in the days after go-live, when problems are cheap to fix and impressions are being formed permanently.
Putting it in · Procedure
The first week decides how the system is understood for the rest of its life. Almost everything that will go wrong is visible in it.
Watch daily, not weekly
Refusal rate, per site, every day.
A site above a few percent needs looking at that day, not at the end of the month.
Fallback usage, which tells you where the primary method is failing.
Corrections submitted, and how fast they are cleared.
Anything unresolved by day three will be a grievance by day ten.
Be present
Stand at the door at shift change, at the busiest site, on day one.
Watch ten people punch.
Time it.
You will see the queue, the dead spot, the phone model that takes longer, and none of it appears in a report.
Fix visibly
Adjust the radius at the worst site and announce it.
"You told us the back entrance didn't work, we've changed it" does more for acceptance than any briefing.
Speed matters more than elegance in the first week.
Be generous
Approve corrections without scrutiny for the first fortnight.
The volume will be high because the system is new, and querying them teaches people not to bother.
Tighten later, once the refusal rate has settled and you can tell an ordinary correction from an unusual one.
Say the pay sentence again
People will not believe it until it happens.
When the first person clocks in by fallback and is paid normally, say so — not naming them, but confirming that it worked.
That is the moment the system is accepted or not.
What to have ready
A named person to ask, present and known.
A one-page reminder of what to do when a punch fails.
Authority to change a radius same-day.
A decision already made about what happens at payroll if corrections are outstanding.
The review at day seven
Refusal rate by site, published.
What was changed and why.
What people said.
And one honest question: is anyone punching from outside to be safe? If yes, something is wrong and it is fixable now rather than after it becomes a habit.
Stand at the door
On day one, at the busiest site, at shift change.
Watch ten people punch and time it.
You will see the queue, the dead spot and the phone model that takes longer.
None of it appears in a report, and all of it is fixable that week at a cost that rises sharply afterwards.
A concrete product reference
When translating this principle into a buying test, the healthcare workflow provides a concrete workflow reference. Verify current behaviour in a trial and judge it against the purpose and limits above.