Issue management defines the process of documenting and escalating any issue that the project may encounter during development, testing and implementation into production. The process document could include the following:

1. How does the project find the issue? Usually, an issue is reported by one of the business users or conversion team members.

2. How does the project document the issue? Some projects use software, and some use spreadsheets. Check the corporate requirements for this type of documentation. The client may already own this type of software.

3. How does the project resolve the issue? This would include how an issue is communicated to the team for resolution, as well as how information is communicated to the business users and the business sponsor. Check the communication plan for more information on escalation.

4. How does the project close the issue? An example could be that an issue cannot be closed until it is unit tested in development, and system tested in the test environment. It is important that we are consistent throughout this conversion project on recording issue information.

5. How does the project report issues? Most projects communicate issues via a project status meeting. Some project managers choose to use charts to present issue management trending.

However you choose to manage issues, it is a crucial part of any conversion project. Decide early on, in the project, how issues will be managed and communicated. As an example, just the other day one of my clients had not documented how issues should be tracked, and the client had to write the process during the "crunch" of testing.