What You Can Do to Help Your Project Succeed
While the definition of success on a project is different for each organization, there are some actions that any company can take to help the project succeed. In addition to benefiting from the expertise of a skilled project manager, here are five actions that your company’s leadership can take internally to ensure the success of your implementation:
- Engage Leadership – Buy-in and engagement start from the top. Business resources will take direct cues from and often react in alignment with their leaders. The company’s leaders can show engagement via early communication of support. Throughout the process they should focus on the goals of the project and continue to reiterate them, ask questions and be an advocate for the project within the organization.
- Aim to Minimize Customizations – Customization means changing or creating code for a system. This carries additional risk during upgrades and ongoing maintenance, which increases the total cost of ownership of a system. Care should be taken to assess customizations and only implement customizations when you able to relieve a significant business operation issue or support a competitive advantage.
- Leverage Dedicated, Experienced Business Resources – Business resources who are familiar with the existing business processes and systems are able to provide deeper insight and often understand the intricacies of how the bigger picture works together. They should have dedicated time allocated to accomplishing project tasks and not only be willing to ask questions, but volunteer ideas and solutions too.
- Make Timely Decisions – Throughout a project multitudes of decisions must be made. Some decisions will be more critical than others due to how they intersect with other work. These key decisions should be made thoughtfully by the right people with the right skills and experience. Once a key decision is made, unless material new information is discovered, avoid trying to re-open or change the decision. That would only introduce additional risk and cost as the project moves forward.
- Be Prepared for Change – All projects come with change, but the depth and breadth of those changes will vary. Help your team by understanding the amount of change coming, being aware of the individuals who may struggle with the change and working with the team to minimize resistance.
Projects always come with complexities. However, being engaged and prepared for the changes and potential issues can move the project to success.
Related: If you enjoyed this article, you might also want to read “How Project Management Affects ERP Implementation” and “Planning for Risks Benefits ERP Implementations.”