Lessons Learned Day 3

What can we do instead of implementing an ERP system.
- Best of breed (best solutions/modules from different providers and their comination)
- Customized development (in-house development)
- Keep going and improve whatever needs to be improved
- Convert everything to MS Excel

yERP so what?
The first task is to select the provider; for this you,
Research
Invite/presentations, let vendors talk
Look at what others do
You should not rely on the presentations; ask a lot of questions about features etc; price and licenses..
Extras, costs, man hours should be asked for.
There are SAP groups where you can learn about what I should ask my vendor
You should keep in mind that vendors are not implementing

Best of breed solutions have certain disadvantages as;
Difficulty in managing upgrades
Integration problems
Different systems, different admin skills (coding language or what)
Cost disadvantage? Different types of consultancy costs will incur
Best of breed, is it the best in terms of functionality? Some people claim this however this might not be the case.

To be successful in the implementation prior to the ERP your homework is to analyze your processes. As a consultant in order to find out if they did their homework look if they ask questions, if they say yes to everything, if they don’t know why they implement ERP, if they don’t have documentation of business processes. If they don’t have it you should have them go through this. Workshops can be conducted for this.

ERP comes with certain flexibility, and when consultants come there is some exchange of knowledge/information.

For the selection process it seems infeasible to check whatever is possible with that solution. Vendor presentations, and talking to people who use ERP is what you can do.

After selection go through courses/trainings to see how it goes with your functions.

Sales people keep track of information about their customers.
They don’t want to share information because you work on commissions, they build personal relationships which makes them powerful, salespeople don’t take this process as a part of their job it just looks like time consuming task with no benefits to them.
There needs to be a mechanism for evaluation and make people write down the information.


Organization Change Management
OCM is regarded as soft stuff but turns to be hard, since appropriate resources are usually not allocated.
OCM initiative can improve company’s success levels.

What is OCM?
Serious set of actions
People’s job changes

Communication is a key point

Ask questions, why are you here, what’s your involvement, do you have a dedicated team

In the example given the company was growing and the IT was not supportive enough.

A single global system was to be implemented.
The project was led by the VP as Champion.

Technical stuff
People stuff

OCM
Training
Security and role development
Business process procedure
Communications
Super user development
- Culture eats strategy for breakfast every day
Culture should allow (make room for) change (entrepreneurial vs. bureaucratic, risk taking conservative, trust vs. fear, etc.)

Underestimation of the complexity leads to unsuccessful projects.

There is not so much time, they have work plus training and on the top practice is required
Learn as less as possible, just what you need.
Just tell me the answer
Question the purpose
- Training starts with the core team training. (information exchange, understand the capabilities)
- Management seminar
- End user training (training needs, contents, delivery, after training-practice) exams, qualifiers before giving access.
Refresher courses are necessary for newcomers.

Courses are though, you have to prepare courses, write down material, come up with exercises and the set up must be done.
Set-up classes.
Who will train? Do you have your own key people managers that can contribute to the training, who could deliver the training?
An outsider specialist does not know your company, and your processes, they need to be backed up about the process.
Hire documentation specialists
Arrange training and manage back up for your functions.

Sending invites, make sure people come to class.
1 administrator and one database for the training

COMMUNICATIONS
Is all communication the same?
We need to communicate with end users, other plants, organizations.
Main goal is the consensus; avoid fear anxiety, insecurity among employees.

In a communications plan: stakeholder and audience, channel, objectives, frequency, communicator, date and time should be included.
Team lunch, impact project management team meeting, impact newsletter, weekly sire leader, cost of meetings
Branding, banners, boards

How to measure effectiveness is difficult.
Do people show up?
Polls? Might be ways of measurement

No time, there is real work to do is the people’s attitude.

SECURITY
Role development and security
You look at what people do at a company, define transactions and group them. These groups are your roles.
Then you look at the individuals and assign roles to them.
There are also view roles only.
When you go live you need to modify access, and change security roles.
Roles are built from scratch there might be templates

SUPER USERS
Super users are knowledgeable, you go to them when you have questions, they help elevate problems, 10% about all users. They also need help and learn throughout time.. they learn with the helpdesk, helpdesks know about all transactions.
When you go live there should be a certain level of understanding.
You select super users there are more than one, and they are chosen on departmental basis.

Super user location and function matrix.
Super user workshops and trainings separately, so they can help others.

BUSINESS PROCESS PROCEDURES
Documentation creation and management.
Not the same as configuration management.
If you do after implementation you won’t be able to use it for training.
The goal is to get them ready concurrently.
Difference from business blue print? Transactional, blue print is a managerial tool. You don’t use blue prints for documentation, blue print is mapping your procedures.
Security will determine training courses
BPP output is training document input.
Super users are key communication, key feedback on security

KEY learning points

Changing people!
Do plan!
Plan budget and resources! At least 10% for OCM
People initiatives
You need to focus on people even though this is a software project