System Implementations Can Be Successful

Welcome to CFO.University’s Transcript of Andrew Lee’s CFO Ed Talk?, System Implementations Can Be Successful. Some of America’s best run companies fail when implementing an ERP system. Andrew describes how three simple concepts; lead, limit and organize can make your system implementation a success.

Enjoy. Learn. Engage.

________________________________________________________________________

To this day, eight years later, I remember pulling into my driveway on a Friday evening a little later than normal, turning the car off and laying my head down on the steering wheel. Three days earlier we had launched our new ERP system and it was not going well. 

So, I used the rest of the weekend to reprioritize the project plan and work on a couple open issues. By the end of the weekend I’d convinced myself maybe things weren’t so bad. That maybe as the project owner I had taken on a little more stress than the rest of the company. 

Monday morning, I came into the office; the first person I see is sitting at her desk crying. She didn’t know how to use the system; the system was not working; she couldn’t do her job. According to the research firm, Gartner, seventy-four percent of ERP system implementations are considered failures. 

According to that same firm, ninety percent of future implementations through 2018 will fail. Why? What are we doing wrong? Google ERP implementations and you’ll find stories about some of America’s best run companies and their implementation failures. CFO’s get fired for these things. Shouldn’t we figure it out? 

Since that time, I had the opportunity to do another implementation. It wasn’t perfect but the results were like night and day. Within three months, our efficiency was better than before we launched. Within one month, our accuracy was better. Our team had the tools they needed to stay in better contact with customers, sell more, run a more robust website and a more efficient operation. Most importantly the team loves it. 

So, what changed? What did I learn the second time around? What I want to share with you today are some simple but powerful concepts based on the following; lead, limit, organize. Do this and you’ll run an effective implementation and avoid getting fired.

Lead = Prepare, Involve, Super Users, Visibility. 

First is to prepare. Prepare the team. Change scares people. Most people don’t like it. What’s even worse is the unknown and you have both of these factors during an implementation so it’s no wonder that people have emotional breakdowns. Talk to them, help them see what’s coming and share the project plan with everyone. 

Your team needs to see the light at the end of the tunnel. They need to be excited about the project. If you can do this well, their jobs are going to be easier. They’ll be able to sell more and make fewer mistakes with less manual entry. You will want them to see that because; that’s the light at the end of the tunnel. You also want them to be prepared for problems. 

Productivity Increase expected at launch

People are likely very excited about launching the new system. The promise of better, quicker more insightful tools can cloud the present. They often look past the time and effort still left to reach those goals They may be expecting productivity is going to immediately increase at launch.

Productivity actually declines for a time at launch

What actually happens, unfortunately, is that when you launch productivity goes down before going up above pre-launch levels. It is really important that the team is prepared for and aware that there will be problems so when those problems come up they don’t think the world is ending and that it’s a complete failure.

Productivity will recover and exceed past levels. 

Also show them that you will get back to where you were and in the longer-term, things will be way better than they ever were before. So, show them these graphs repeatedly throughout the process.

Next is to involve. It’s the people in your organization that are actually doing the implementation, not you. You just need to lead them. So, the best way to involve people is by involving them from the very beginning. Have them help you make and be a part of the purchasing decision. Have them help you weigh the pros and the cons. 

People don’t need to get their own way all the time they just need to know that their voice is being heard. Involve them and you’ll have their buy-in from the start. 

Next are super users. Super users are a great resource for you. You want as many of them as you can get. Ideally one per department would be great. Doesn’t matter what their rank or their title is, you just want people that are excited about the project and maybe have a little bit of skill in this area. They’re a great resource because you can push open items to them. More importantly, they’ll be able to help get the rest of the organization excited and bought into this project. So, we talk about needing to get buy-in from the top, what we really need is to get buy-in from the bottom and then all the way up. 

Fourth is visibility. Your team needs to see progress. This is going to be a really long and grueling project and remember your team is doing this in addition to their day jobs. So, it can be really difficult on morale when you start to run into problems. Two things that can help are; number one, make sure that all of the open issues are visible and number two, show this graph.

The blue bars are the current outstanding open issues by date and the green bar is the cumulative number of issues that have been resolved. It’s really important to see that because even though there’s some really important challenges that need to get figured out, you can also show the team we are figuring things out. You are actually making a lot of really good progress. So we reviewed a chart like this for the company as a whole and then one for each department. 

Summarizing the first concept, Lead; Prepare your team for change and fall in productivity before real improvement takes place, Involve the people who do the work, develop Super Users from experts who are excited about the project potential and make sure progress is visible to the project team.

Learn the details of Andrew's 2nd and 3rd simple but powerful concepts that are included in his CFO Ed Talk? here: System Implementations Can Be Successful

Watch the CFO Ed Talk?or listen to the Podcast Here!

Not a member-scholar yet? Join our financial community here!

Identify your path to CFO success by taking our CFO Readiness Assessment??.

For the most up to date and relevant accounting, finance, treasury and leadership headlines all in one place subscribe to The Balanced Digest.

Follow us on Linkedin, Facebook, Twitter.