Microsoft Surface 3 - Manual (Page 33)

© 2014 Microsoft Page 33
of the production environment. For example, if you are deploying organization wide, but you pilot the
deployment only to the financial department, the pilot does not provide a reasonable indication that the
deployment will likewise be successful in the graphics department where hardware and software configurations
may be different.

Pilot duration
The more complex an environment, the more time you should give to pilot a deployment. It is important to
allow enough time for the computers and users involved in the pilot program to uncover any issues with
applications, configurations, drivers, etc.

Comparable usage
It is important that users involved in a pilot deployment use the computers in the same way as a production
system to ensure that potential issues or bugs are uncovered. For example, if users are allowed to work offsite
with a production Surface Pro 3 device, they should be allowed to do so in the pilot program as well. This will
ensure that any incompatibilities with devices in offsite environments are also uncovered.
Staggered Deployments
In a staggered deployment, the organization or production environment is divided into smaller sections with similar
requirements and deployment is performed to these smaller sections one at a time. For example, consider an
organization that has these functional areas:

Executive

Administrative

Design

IT
You likely want to deploy to each functional area/department at a time instead of all departments at once. You might
want to consider the “importance” of those functional areas. You want to ensure there are no deployment problems
before deploying to your executives. Alternatively, it is common to break up deployments by geographical location. In
an organization with offices in three separate buildings, the deployments may be performed by building.
Proper planning of a deployment can help to avoid the scenario where a deployment causes work stoppage or falls
behind schedule. With the highly granular and modular nature of the Microsoft Deployment Toolkit, the deployment
process can be divided or split without a loss of efficiency. The work done to deploy to one part of an organization can
easily translate to another part with the ability to copy or link deployment shares and to manage applications and
drivers separate from the system images.
“White Glove” Delivery
Receiving a new computer can be a radical change for some users. Not all users adjust to the changes of a new device at
the same pace and, in some cases, users can end up frustrated or dissatisfied with a device simply due to a lack of
familiarity that is otherwise a significant improvement. Some scenarios where this commonly occurs include:

Changing between operating system versions, such as moving from Windows 7 to Windows 8.1

Changing between form factors, such as replacing a desktop with a tablet

Introducing new technologies, such as touch capabilities