How can you ensure that your ERP implementation project timeline is realistic?

It is important to understand when moving to a new ERP that you are looking to improve processes rather than implement the processes you currently have. If you are only looking to replicate your current processes then either keep your current system or upgrade. It is also important to recognise that existing staff will only know the current processes so you will need outside help to understand how you can improve the solution. The support of existing staff is essential though and documenting existing processes helps identify issues that need improving.

ERP fantasy during sales cycle: 'best practices' & 'no customization'. ERP reality during implementation: 'mindless replication of legacy' & 'endless customization'. SI firms go wrong in two ways: 1- try to push vanilla solutions with known gaps down the users' throats & dress up the revolt as change resistance or 2: blindly replicate incomplete requirements with custom code leading to massive schedule and cost overruns. What's the way out? I recommend leveraging design thinking as a technique upfront to 1. discover current state and pain points in users' journeys in detail and 2. define target state driven by industry best practice processes and human-centered design. Select ERP solution after your target state & requirements are clear.

The single most important factor to improve the outcome is the commitment levels of the stakeholder departments (almost everyone for ERP). Nobody has time as lean organizations have tuned their headcount to run the business. Management needs to permit hiring/outsourcing, backfilling critical resources, It's already a huge investment and short-changing headcount may be managing the cents at the expense of dollars. Be on the alert for departments that are not meeting their commitments. A single department can de-rail an ERP implementation. All departments must be integral to the ERP solution selection, ideally unanimously. This should not be an IT or Finance or C-Suite sole decision. In the end, users will make it work or make it fail.

1. Rate the Complexity of the project through requirements, solution mapping, Key User Maturity, Implementation Partner Capabilities, Data Migration Readiness and importantly the Change Management aspects. 2. Based on complexity, derive deliverables, plan for solution mapping sessions, Development durations prepare the baseline plan with a decent contingencies, but with strict deadlines. 3. Track and follow up deliverables, Timeline and efforts spent. Ensure, milestones are accepted with Check in and Check out objectives met. Issues captured to micro level with proposed solution / workarounds. 4. Monitor / Adjust timeline based on regular feedback from Implementation team and Business users and arrive at common and acceptable duration.

Le plus important est d'ecouter ses équipes et de formuler les hypothèses de travail, a mon avis. La capacité du client a reagir avec rapidité et engagement est a prendre en compte aussi dans l'équation. Il est vrai que si les equipes projet, utilisateurs de l'ERP actuel ne connaissent pas les raisons pour lesquelles les processus actuels sont appliqués ou les orientations de l'organisation, il y a des risques qu'ils se contentent de demander un copier- coller de la solution actuelle.

Selecting the right methodology for your ERP implementation is vital. Don't just accept what your implementation partner suggests. Consider your project's size, complexity, and nature, as well as your organizational culture and risk tolerance. Educate your team and organization on the selected methodology. The chosen methodology will define your project's timeline, phases, and deliverables. It's a decision that can greatly impact your project's success, so choose wisely.

Communication is the key and for ERP implementation it should be clear between service partner and the client on what they are expecting as a final product and in what timeframe.

Tendency of business owners are waterfall in ERP projects, as it is considered as the best methodology to mitigate financial risks. Its true that waterfall helps visualize the output at the end of the blueprinting stage, however suitability of the methodology depends on the speed of transformation of the business processes. There should'nt be a situation at the point of go-live onboarded ERP processes are redundant.

Before methodology the question is sponsorship and ownership. Who in business is the sponsor and business ownership. Change management needs to driven throughout the organisation. Who in organisation will drive this change

Selecting the right methodology critical for success in ERP implementations. For example SAP has designed a methodology for implementing SAP S4 HANA projects called SAP Activate, its a combination of Best Practices, methodology, content, and tools which if applied correctly will save lot of resources. Care must be taken to ensure the methodolgy is tweaked to suit organisational culture etc, for example use of Agile or Waterfall for different phases of the project and where applicable use of hybrid apporach is necessary. PM team must be experienced & skilled in these to ensure its applied properly. Using the right mehtodology that is tried and tested improves the speed of delivery, saves resources and provide better chance of success.

Anyone who says they have estimated an ERP project correctly on Day 1, probably also believes in Santa ! The key here is constant review, adherence to scope and flexibility to revise the plan

Three major points to ensure a realistic ERP implementation project timeline. Firstly, breaking the project down into several micro-projects with well-defined scopes and micro-timeline planning can help mitigate the risk of an overly optimistic schedule. Secondly, when accommodating amendment requests in project requirements during execution, adjusting the scope, consequences, and timeline thoughtfully is essential to maintain realism. Finally, continuous monitoring of external factors and industry trends allows us to anticipate and proactively address scope changes. Accurate estimation, achieved through historical data, expert judgment, or parametric estimation, should consider all these variables to ensure a realistic project timeline.

It’s important to understand whether you are looking to improve current business processes or keep existing ones. Please be aware that some organizations have improved and tailored their legacy ERP processes over 20 years. It will also make it difficult to calculate a business case other than replacing a legacy ERP system and require high change management effort. Based on my own experience, an average full ERP implementation project costs are about 3% of your company’s revenue. In more complex companies, it can be higher and vice versa. It would be interesting to hear from other experts if that rule of thumb is waterproof.

Estimating the time and effort required for an ERP implementation is a crucial step to ensure a successful project. Accurate estimation helps in managing expectations, allocating resources, and setting realistic timelines. We can achieve it with multi-faceted approach during analysis engage stakeholders to gather specific requirements. Create a detailed project plan with tasks, responsibilities, and dependencies. Consider ERP system complexity, customization, and integration needs. Allocate adequate resources as estimated. Ensure the project timeline is realistic, accounting for all project components always adds time for unexpected delays or reasonable buffer and last timely review try to reduce the effort with proactive actions.

Always start with the end goal, what is the clients expectation as well as the companies expectation. Work your way back from that, plan according to the project scope as well as any deviations possible in the project. Development, enhancements and training can always move timelines, plan accordingly and build in enough time into the project for these points. Communication is key to any sucsessfull timeline, as well as full visibility of scope.

Evaluate the project periodically (status meetings, steerco meetings) and seek guidance and recommendation from leaders and process experts. Transparent project reporting helps drive the projects follow realistic timelines

Plan and Ensure to have a well elaborate clear scope of intended goal with stakeholders Don't re - invent the wheel.Some organisations are static and rigid to changes hence makes it challenging to define an elaborate blue print within thin timelines. Plan all the pre requisites for the projects and ensure there is project plan with periodic steerco s to monitor implementation. Well planned project will definitely enable one to meet project timeliness and ofcourse goodwill from key stakeholders is key. ??

Continuous monitoring and adjustment of our project timeline is essential. Regular progress tracking, open communication, and effective use of tools like dashboards help us promptly address variances, ensuring your project stays on track throughout its lifecycle.

Share the bigger picture with all stakeholders. Keep the customers engaged with the progress. Quantify the change before accepting scope change.

Developing a realistic timeline is crucial, but realism doesn't always translate to reality. It is important to communicate the assumptions and risks that go with the timeline. Being proactive is key. It is better to be realistic than to leave stakeholders with the impression that you were not forthcoming.

Expert guidance is essential for successful ERP implementation. Consultants or vendors offer expertise, best practices, and insights, ensuring efficient project management, risk mitigation, and timely completion. Their support is invaluable in securing project success.

This is the most important point. Let's be realistic, you have to be surrounded by experts we are doing this everyday for a living and who experienced many similar projects. Else it is very difficult to estimate the timline and the cost of a huge ERP implementation (it can go according to the scope from few millions to few hundreds millions). What I would suggest is to involve 2 or 3 integrators and make their presentation reviewed by the vendor.

Let the best man do the job ! I always recommend that if IT, ERP is not your core, then stay away from it. Focus on your business and core model while letting the experts do what they are good at.

Having an expert in the driving seat of implementation is good but the change process needs to be reinforced with ambassadors of change in the team and a top tier steering committee. Without these two levels, a consultant would fall short of achieving desired objectives.

Seek expert guidance of course, led by an experienced specialist full time Project Manager. Then build the right team with this PM using a mix of the best available internal resources, ideally seconded to the project full time, supplemented by expert external resources where necessary. Build a high performing project team culture and one that is open, honest and transparent, a team that will walk through walls to deliver results when necessary.

Dont' forget to consider change management! Change management is as important as developing, customizing, implementing ERP Systems to an organization. ERP systems are used by people across an organization and these people must understand and appreciate the reasons why the ERP project exists. Change management should be backed by executives, managers, owners, not just the project team. Proper communication and information dissemination should be observed.

Define a business readiness project to ensure the following. It will save you time and money: 1.) Organizational readiness from post-merger integration, organizational structure, and defined business roles/responsibilities 2.) Process maturity readiness - Are you implementing new processes and are you dealing with low or high process maturity? 3.) Master data readiness for materials, vendors, and customer data is key to success. Data migration scoping (materials sold during the last 3 years) and cleansing needs to be done prior to the project (duplicates eliminated, missing data fields are enriched). 4.) Key user maturity and process understanding in your organization 5.) Implementation capabilities within the business as well as IT

I'd like to highlight a significant aspect, which I refer to as the Smart Business Solution Delivery approach. This method encompasses various elements, in addition to the completion of Readiness Plans (comprising Business, People, Business Processes, and Technology): 1. Incorporating Organizational Change Management (OCM) strategies. 2. Employing practical principles and tools for Business Analysis & Requirements. 3. Applying Project Management principles and tools. 4. Ensuring security and compliance measures are in place. 5. Being well-informed about the common reasons for project failures - particularly, never taking vendors' actions at face value and actively engaging in the process.

One of the most important things to consider is change management. An ERP implementation is disruptive to any organization and the employees need to be taken on the journey from the implementation until the new system is used. Even if you have a successful technical implementation the people are also key to the success of the project.

For our ERP major projects we used a hybrid team model of an external implementation partner augmented by our internal company specific business process and systems experts. Collaboratively we integrated the 2 perspectives into our company specific plan. Within boundaries, our internal team established the detailed plan and timeline. This promoted ownership and commitment to the plan and a desire to achieve its milestones to ensure credibility. The challenge to “let go” of controlling the project plan resulted in a shorter and more comprehensive plan than original. We repeated this approach successfully a number of times.