The first step in the deployment process is to assess your business needs so that you can define the project scope and objectives. Next, decide how best to use Windows 7 to meet those needs. Then assess your current network and desktop configurations, determine whether you need to upgrade your hardware or software, and choose the tools for your de-ployment. Having made these decisions, you are ready to plan your deployment. An effective plan typically includes the following:

• Scope and Objectives: The scope is the baseline for creating a specification for your deployment project. The scope is simply a statement of what you are trying to accomplish and how you plan to accomplish it.


• Current Environment: Document your existing computing environment, looking at your organization's structure and how it supports users. The three major areas of your computing environment to assess include your hardware, software, and network.


• Configuration Plan: Determine which features to include in your configuration and how to implement these fea-tures to simplify the management of users and computers in your organization. An important means of simplification is standardization. Standard-izing users' configuration settings, software, hardware, and preferences simplifies deploying operating system and application upgrades, and configuration changes can be guaranteed to work on all computers.


• Testing and Piloting: Before rolling out your deployment project, you need to test it for functionality in a con-trolled environment. Before you begin testing your deployment project, create a test plan that describes the tests you will run, who will run each test, a schedule for performing tests, and the expected results. The test plan must specify the criteria and priority for each test.
  
  Microsoft recommends that you pilot the project (that is, roll out the deployment) to a small group of users after you test the project. Piloting the installation allows you to assess the success of the deployment project in a production environment before rolling it out to all users. The primary purpose of pilot projects is not to test Windows 7, but to get user feed-back.


• Rolling Out: To create your final rollout plan, you need to determine the following:


• The number of computers to include in each phase of the rollout


• The time needed to upgrade or perform a clean installation for each computer that you include


• The personnel and other resources needed to complete the rollout


• The time frame during which you plan to roll out the installations to different groups


• The training needed for users throughout the organization