Bring together a high quality software implementation team
“The talent a company assigns to its ERP team demonstrates to a large degree its commitment to long term organizational health”
A talented implementation team sees the big picture more completely, appreciates the implications of the strategic plan better, evaluates decisions not only in terms of what is today, but what is likely to become tomorrow, and has the organizational respect to sell difficult, but necessary process changes.
What characteristics should you look for in implementation team members?
- Promotable individuals
- Intelligence
- Resilience and non-wavering commitment to the planned outcomes
- Attention to detail, people keen on learning new skills
- Depth of understanding
- The ability to listen to multiple points of view, and assimilate the best parts into a single solution
You require a strict project manager and also someone to cover the technical aspects of the implementation.
Ensure that all key user groups are represented on your team so that their needs and requirements are represented to the wider company.
Create a solid Implementation budget and project plan (RACI Project Governance essential)
“Without a written plan that targets specific objectives, you will end up overspending on education”
Two basic budget tips for success
Tip 1: When you manage an ERP implementation budget, you will become wildly popular overnight. It is a necessary skill to learn to say “no” to a request for money without saying “no” to your working relationship.
Tip 2: Have a well-defined training plan for your implementation, development, and basis teams.
Without a written training plan that targets specific objectives, you will end up overspending on education, as there is almost always a compelling argument for each individual class.
Apply the 75% rule.
Use that final 25% surplus budget in the last six weeks before go-live and first six weeks after. There will be unexpected problems, and that is when you need the flexibility to spend money aggressively, and wisely. Once people recognize that problems are being corrected quickly confidence soars, and the probability of success takes a stair step up.
Choose an implementation business partner carefully
“Evaluating the culture of an ERP consulting company is perhaps even more critical than evaluating their product.”
Depending on the size and scope of your ERP implementation, you may be faced with choosing a vendor to provide a consulting team for your implementation.
Not every ERP project requires a full time consultant team.
If you do determine that you need some ERP implementation consultants to guide you through the unfamiliar process of an implementation, then selecting the right implementation partner becomes as crucial to your success as selecting the right software vendor.
Create solid change management and training plans
“The good news – and most critical thing to remember – is that the way people come to believe things and form opinions is both consistent and predictable. By offering a well-planned, gradual changeover, the normal discomfort associated with change on the scale of an ERP project can be reduced to manageable levels.”
What should you include inter alia in your change management plan?
- Clarify what implementation support your vendor is giving you
- Project management
- Customization
- Data migration
- Consultancy
- Training
- Create a user engagement plan
- Anticipate disruption to everyday activities and let affected employee groups know
- Signpost ways in which staff can raise questions or concerns about your new ERP
- Create a user training timetable and inform staff of when their slots are in advance
- Forecast implementation costs and create an ERP implementation budget
- Staff overtime during implementation
- Data backup and storage, Customization and development
- Create a timeline for completing the following steps:
- Data migration
- All user training
- Testing
- On-the-day go-live activities
- Identify metrics by which to measure ERP implementation success
Cleanse and migrate your legacy systems data with care
“Ask any veteran of an ERP implementation to cite critical success factors, and you will always hear “data cleansing and migration” near the top of the list. Then ask those same veterans to identify the top two or three tasks that they most underestimated, in terms of scope and complexity, and see if “data cleansing” does not also make that list as well.”
There are three primary reasons that people underestimate the task of data cleansing, which, if avoided, will make your ERP implementation better:
- Master data is usually dispersed among multiple systems in legacy, people rarely appreciate how much of it there is.
- Some data cleansing ends up being an iterative process, which creates a bit of a Catch-22 – you can’t test without master data, and the reason for the test is to evaluate master data.
- It is extremely difficult to objectively measure progress on data cleansing. Data that you might have considered cleansed and complete does not test well, and suddenly it becomes “uncleansed”.
Test your new software
“Testing requires more than just assigning manpower. It is an iterative process, which means not only testing, but evaluating problems, and fixing things.”
TEST, REVISE, RE-TEST, REPEAT ….
TEST, REVISE, RE-TEST, REPEAT ….
“Eventually, an inflection point occurs during testing which is incredibly important for a team’s morale and attitude; it is the realization that the team is certain of a successful go-live”
Train ALL your key users groups
“The best way to increase the number of problem solvers is to identify individuals during training who either show unusually quick comprehension of the material or unusual curiosity”
One of the best ways to increase the likelihood of an ERP implementation success is with an effective end user training process. There are several levels of escalating contribution that can result from a well-executed end user training program.
FIND YOUR PROBLEM SOLVERS
The highest benefit of end user training is to increase the effective size of the problem-solving team at go-live. “Problem solvers” are helpful, positive energy contributors to an effort; much more valuable than the more common “problem identifier”, who are content to throw a problem over the wall to the implementation team, and then walk away from it.
Adapt your business processes to / with your new system design
“While there will be very few business processes that actually represent a strategic advantage, you will encounter 100% resistance to changing any of them.”
ERP systems have been developed and refined by observing best business practices and incorporating them into the design; if you have a non-conforming process then it’s likely not a best practice. Yet, you will face opposition to changing, because somebody is going to have to do something they don’t want to do; marketing won’t want to bill customers for product they didn’t order, production will not accept being charged with 5% scrap, and planning can’t afford the risk of shortages.
“Create an additional success out of knowledge that your ERP package represents the norm for business practices, and you have the opportunity to quietly correct some bad business habits.”
Evaluate the success of your software implementation
THINK ‘ACHIEVABLE’
Unless your implementation is within the aerospace industry, your success definition does not need to be rocket science. The litmus test of a sufficient definition is one that, no matter what else additional happens or is said, you will feel the implementation was well done.
For example, a simple success statement could be: convert over to ERP. But if you couldn’t ship anything the first two days, would you be disappointed? If so, how about: convert to ERP with no significant business disruption. That’s better.
How about: convert to ERP with no significant business disruption and no negative impacts on external customers. That’s even more specific, and leads to discussion about whether the correct phrase is no negative impacts or no ERP-related negative impacts.