You Bought the Wrong LIMS or Other Software - Now What?

Are you having buyer's remorse? Do you think you bought the wrong brand or type of software (e.g., a LIMS instead of an ELN; an ERP instead of an MES)?

You're not alone. Many companies out there get into implementation and find that:

• The project is taking much longer and requiring much more money than planned.
• You're not going to get the value out of the product that would justify spending this much money.
• The features don't match what you need.

The Happy Path Problem

Of course, when you talked to other people in your industry, they gave glowing reviews for the software you bought. They talked about how successful they were. They told you this was a good choice for you.

Of course they did. They spent so much money on their implementation, they almost can't do otherwise or they would look like fools or possibly be fired over the situation.

Yes, really!

The same for your software vendor, who told you their software was: easy-peasy to implement, better than everyone else's, in the cloud, has a PSO (Professional Services Organization) to just make this all happen for you, it's a "turnkey" system, and/or this seamlessly integrates with the rest of the software they sell.

My point is that we focus on the cheery sales pitch we get from the software vendors but our peers in other companies can be just as bad.

And we love people who tell us success stories so we buy into it. Human beings are like this, sometimes. The secret to this is, when we buy into a false story, can we be humble-enough to admit we made a mistake? I'm just asking you to think about this the next time it happens to you or your company.

What Now?

Whether you just bought the software and immediately realized you made a mistake, or you're struggling to implement, you need to work together to determine where you're at.

Your project steering committee needs to take a hard look at what is wrong and whether there is a realistic expectation of success. Do not ask questions that tend to sound like "is this possible?" but instead be asking those more toward "is this likely?"

One issue is that there is possibly a gap between the upper management or lab manager who pushed for this purchase and possibly even a specific brand, the people doing the work to implement, and the people who need to use this.

All these people need to be represented in order to make some kind of decision. Otherwise, what you get is really just endless complaining and no action. Here is what each party will say:

1. Upper Manager/Lab Manager: I was told this was a great system and I used this someplace else. We had no problems with this and I think you're all a bunch of whiners trying to make me look bad. By the way, you asked for a system and I bought you a system so it's up to you what you do with it.
2. The people doing the implementation: we get pressure from all sides, no-one listens to us, we're required to keep going and that's what we'll do unless we can find jobs elsewhere.
3. The lab users: Everyone hates us. This is the worst system we've ever been given. Who would do this to us?!?!?!

I exaggerated to make a point but you get the idea that people are seeing one view of this. Without coming together to balance what is good for the company, as a whole, you can end up in a deadlock that companies do find themselves in. Then, you end up with something unusable, if you end up with anything, at all.

The Sunk Cost Fallacy

At some point, someone will say, "We put too much money into this to abandon it." That is actually not true. If you fear that abandoning this means you will get no system, at all, that could actually be true. But thinking that spending more will help is not necessarily the truth.

I've mentioned this, before, but the problem with the "Sunk Cost Fallacy" is that it is a really simple situation some of us learn about way, way back in college and then don't remember to apply when we run into the actual situation.

This is So Hard!!!

Yes, evaluating whether to continue is hard. Consider that decision-making is not perfect, these financial evaluations are sometimes vague, but that "hope is not a strategy" when you're spending hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars. It's also particularly bad when you want to ensure product safety, to save lives, or to cure anybody, by the way.

In any case, look at the three groups above. Are these three groups merely bickering, at this point, or are they having a real discussion about the situation? If you have fallen into bickering and cannot get out of that, you might as well stop the project.

Tips to Continue the Implementation

If you will be continuing your implementation, here are a few thoughts:

• Features don't match. If you truly bought software with features that don't match your needs, don't look at this as a "platform" and build it out on your own. There are few places where we cannot buy commercial software as a baseline, these days. You need to compare the cost of finding something appropriate and starting a new implementation with that.
• It's not the features but the team that seems to be struggling. During busy times in our industry, we take who we can get. Some projects will obtain a few experienced people who can help train those people who we are "giving a chance to" (those people with little to no experience). Even then, you need the right mix of experienced people so that they know most or all of what you need tackled within the project. You might need to shuffle people in or out. Or, if you bought an entire team from some consulting company, you would have some strong type of "out" in your contract so that you can swap them out if they were completely the wrong people, or entirely drop this consulting company or services group off your project. Note that you have to think of this ahead of time to ensure you have this type of clause in the contract and are watching for a situation in which to use it.
• General unrest. Going back to those three groups I listed above, if they are not aligned, you cannot move forward. The most common issue is a lack of leadership. At this point, your "leadership" might state they gave you the money and they don't need to intervene. If the steering committee cannot manage this on their own, they also need to be shuffled around. Somewhere, somehow, if you have poor leadership or poor communications between these channels, your project will continue to struggle.

Finally

At this point in my career, I have seen a multitude of these situations because those are usually the projects that need my help and bring me in. The "happy" projects don't need that extra help. You might think I have a skewed view of this and I probably do.

Unfortunately for you, you cannot that easily explain this all away as those of us working with these systems do run across these types of issues, regardless.