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TROUBLESHOOTING PROBLEMATIC ERP IMPLEMENTATIONS
PART FIVE: YOUR NORTH STAR PRINCIPLES
Whether your Business Process Implementation is a brand new endeavor or one involving repair of previous work, think of your project as the engine of a car.
The engine works hard to make the car go. When it works well, it propels the car far and fast. When it doesn’t work, it’s usually because the engine hasn’t received the proper resources to guarantee full functionality.
What resources does an engine require? Fuel, oil, upkeep (in the form of regular maintenance checks), and repairs as they become warranted.
Your ERP implementation is no different. It requires the same resources. Consider:
Fuel – Three types of fuel become critical to your implementation’s success: proper funding, proper personnel, and the proper amount of time allocated for your project’s successful completion.
Proper funding – your organization has budgeted for any overriding expenses your implementation may incur.
Proper personnel – your company has assigned the project employees with the deepest knowledge of its current and aspirational states. At EstesGroup, we’ve come to think that the best people to pick for your implementation team are the people you can least afford to take out of your organization’s day-to-day activities. Only then can you feel comfortable that your best people are on the job, and that your ERP solution will benefit – now and later – from their unmatched expertise.
Time – Proper amount of time means that your organization maintains an objective understanding of how long a successful ERP implementation takes to deliver. Far too often, we see companies balk at committing this particular resource.
Oil – The lubricant of your ERP implementation – that force which ensures that all the various parts of the engine turn seamlessly on each other – is embodied by your project leaders and, ultimately, your project’s executive sponsorship (see Part Three of this blog series: Strong Executive Sponsorship). Capable, energetic leadership is so essential to your implementation’s success that we’ve come to consider it one of your project’s most pivotal resources.
Upkeep – As part of your Project Organization (see Part Four: Effective Project Organization), your implementation team commits to constant interaction between your company’s project managers, core team, and executive sponsorship. A successful ERP implementation is not the kind of work your enterprise can undertake as a hobby. It’s a rigorous, recursive process that demands consistent check-ins to ensure proper calibration.
Repairs – Unforeseen setbacks occur in even the best-planned implementations. They’re nothing to get upset about, and they can always be surmounted – provided the other project resources identified above have been supplied by your organization.
