1. ENGAGED executive sponsorship 2. EXPERIENCED implementation team 3. REALISTIC scope and expectations 4. COLLABORATION among implementation partners 5. DETAILED DEFINITION of business value 6. LEADERSHIP through organizational change

1. PeopleSoft Ohio Regional Users Group:
Top Six Factors for ERP Success
Presented by: Ocie Anderson
March 17, 2016

2. Background
Ocie Anderson
Director of Consulting Services
Navigator Management Partners
• Reside in Atlanta, GA
• Education:
– Georgia Tech: BS Industrial Engineering ‘96
– Purdue University: MS Industrial Engineering ‘00
• Experience:
– 18+ Years in Supply Chain and ERP
– PMI: Project Management Professional
– Prosci® Certified Change Practitioner
– APICS: Certified Supply Chain Professional
• Employment History:
– General Motors/Delphi Automotive Systems
– Arthur Andersen LLP
– IBM Business Consulting Services
– Deloitte Consulting LLP
– Navigator Management Partners LLC (current)

3. Top 6 Factors for ERP Success
• Many people focus on the technical aspects of a project
‒ too much scope
‒ not enough time
‒ too few resources
‒ poor quality
‒ high risks
‒ extensive customizations
‒ poor testing and training
• While these things require our attention, I would like to explore
the root causes of these problems on ERP projects.
• E.g.: Customizations
‒ should be viewed through the lens of business value
‒ some provide efficiency or competitive edge
‒ should be included in the scope and have adequate resources allocated
‒ prolific or extensive customizations occur when there is no clear direction
for the team on how to define business value, or the business and
solution requirements to attain them

4. Top 6 Factors for ERP Success
1. Engaged Executive Sponsorship
2. Experienced Implementation Team
3. Aligning Scope and Expectations
4. Partner Collaboration
5. Unlocking Business Value
6. Leadership Through Change Management

5. Engaged Executive Sponsorship

6. Engaged Executive Sponsorship

7. Engaged Executive Sponsorship
Set the Tone and Vision for Project Success
It is important for a sponsor to communicate why a project is important and to do so in a
manner that arms the team with direction that they can use to make everyday decisions. A
good sponsor will present a clear vision for the project.
“We will identify opportunities to improve our processes, eliminate waste,
and become more efficient in our supply chain processes.”
“We will transform our business through major improvements in people,
process, and technology that provide us with world-class capabilities and
improve our process maturity.”
“We will move quickly from our legacy systems by implementing industry
standard processes and tools while maintaining our competitive
advantages in order to avoid a catastrophic legacy outage.”
Vision will arm the team that is trying to decide details such as how much scope to include
in the project such as: new applications or modules, process change, customizations, and
organizational transformation.

8. Engaged Executive Sponsorship
Develop Realistic Scope and Expectations
If success is defined as the attainment of something desired, then it’s important to fully
define what that “something” is, otherwise, you might attain something else!
The same project can be viewed as both a success and a failure by two different
stakeholders if the proper and consistent expectations of what the project will provide is
not set.
Expectations are the business capabilities that stakeholders expect to have at the end of
the project that they do not have currently. They must be analyzed for viability, confirmed
as part of the project scope, and communicated to the team for implementation.
• What processes will be in scope?
• What new functionality is expected?
• What other enabling technologies are needed?
The answers to these questions are vastly different on a transformation project than they
are on a technical upgrade project and can make the difference in the approach taken by
the team.

9. Engaged Executive Sponsorship
Communicate with and Empower the Team at All Levels
An engaged sponsor will talk to everyone on the project team as frequently as possible.
The sponsor will communicate the vision, and set boundaries for scope and expectations.
The sponsor will also talk to the team about how they are doing and their perception of
how the project is going.
• What concerns do they have?
• What is keeping them up at night?
• What problems aren’t getting resolved?
Engaging with the team in this way is the best way to get a true pulse of how the project is
proceeding.
The complexity of an ERP project requires hundreds of decisions to be made that change
how the business will operate. A sponsor cannot make all of these decisions, they can only
provide the scope and direction. The team needs to hear from the sponsor that they are
empowered to change how business is done.

10. Engaged Executive Sponsorship
Be Accountable for the Project and Team Success
• An engaged sponsor is accountable and is answerable for the project success, for
achieving the projected savings, and for providing opportunity for the professional
success of the team members.
• To achieve this the sponsor must communicate and know what the trajectory of a
project is. It is also the responsibility of the sponsor to ensure performance is measured
in order to document improvements.
Accountability to the professional success of the team members is also critical. An ERP
project often takes people out of their full-time roles for the duration of the project. These
team members must be provided with an understanding of what is to come after the
project is completed.
• At the end of an ERP project, these team members often know more about how the
business operates than anyone else! How valuable a commodity is that?
• An engaged sponsor will provide these employees with opportunities to shine and take
on new and rewarding challenges after the project.

11. Experienced Implementation Team

12. Experienced Implementation Team
“Who would you rather have to define how your
business will run for the next decade?”
1. Someone who has operational knowledge of your business based on years
of experience succeeding and excelling in what they do; the best that the
business has to offer.
2. Someone new to your business who is not as knowledgeable, or whose
performance has not met expectations; someone that the business can
“spare to lose” for a period of time.
In these terms it may appear to be an obvious choice. But these are real issues
that companies and organizations grapple with when staffing an ERP project.
When making these decisions it’s important to consider the following:
• Running the business in the short term is tactical
• Designing the business processes for the future is strategic

13. Engaged Executive Sponsorship
How do you secure the best internal team members?
1. Plan. Provide the business with as much lead time as possible to allow them to
source, back-fill, and train replacements.
2. Communicate. Change management methodologies tell us of the importance of
communicating the strategic importance of ERP projects, their alignment to overall
company strategy, and the critical nature of project execution. What we are doing is
not as important as why we are doing it.
3. Acknowledge. Be understanding to the business. Acknowledge the potential
impact to efficiency and performance as a risk and engage in risk mitigation strategies.
Provide additional resources to the business to enable risk mitigation.
4. Engage. Make decisions that will help the business operate and minimize outside
impacts. The organization may experience inefficiencies but steps should be made so
that customers are not affected. Hiring extra staff or carrying additional inventory are
ways to minimize the impacts of inefficiency.
5. Support. Resources on an ERP project will need support and understanding of how
time spent on the project and away from their jobs will impact their personal career
goals. If the project is perceived to be of real strategic importance to the company, the
best resources will desire to be a part of it.

14. Engaged Executive Sponsorship
What about the external team members (aka the consultants)?
Another challenge that many clients face is how to determine that external team
members have the necessary experience for project success.
• Interviewing potential consultants is a practice that is not always done. When
practical, I highly recommend that clients interview potential resources. For
critical roles on the project they should interview multiple qualified individuals
and choose the best resource.
• For large projects, the number of consultants and the deep technical skills they
bring may be a challenge if the client does not have the time or the technical
knowledge to properly interview them. Here are some simple questions to ask
of your consulting partners regardless of your ability to properly interview them:
‒ Which of the people that we have met will actually be on the team?
‒ What does each person bring to the project?
‒ Do your leads have a good mix of industry, solution, and process expertise?
‒ Are they experienced facilitators?
‒ Do the project team members complement the strengths of their leads?

15. Experienced Implementation Team
The best ERP project teams are made up of the best of the best project leads and
experienced project team members who understand the business, the industry, the
processes, and solution design. Together, these teams will bring the best practice
methodologies, business processes, and creative solutions for the industry that is tailored
to the unique requirements of the business.

16. Aligning Scope and Expectations

17. Aligning Scope and Expectations
“If you complete the scope of work within the
constraints of time, cost, and resources with
high quality, how is that not success?”
The statement of work or the scope statement forms the definition of an ERP
project. We ask a lot of questions when developing the scope of an ERP project:
• What processes are in scope? Which modules will be implemented?
• How many custom reports, interfaces, conversions, enhancements are required?
• How many users are there? How many locations?
Cost, time, quality, people, hardware, software, telecom…all are resources and
constraints to consider when scoping an ERP project. However, there is an
equally important aspect in between scope and success that must be aligned,
and that is expectation. Expectation is a belief that something will happen or be
the case in the future. It is similar to scope but requires different types of
questions to be asked in order to determine what they are.

18. Aligning Scope and Expectations
“Different stakeholders can know the same
scope of work, see the same project outcomes,
and come to different conclusions as to
whether or not a project was successful.”

19. Aligning Scope and Expectations
Mitigating the impact of different expectations requires a different set of questions to be
asked:
1. What does success look like to you? Not everyone is concerned with being on-time and
on-budget (although some certainly are). Some stakeholders have needs for game-changing
functionality that makes the business more competitive.
2. What will we be able to do that we couldn’t do before? When a company spends
millions of dollars on a new ERP system, they expect to have new capabilities. Those
expectations need to be discovered and aligned with the scope. In some cases, hiring new talent
may also be required to achieve the capability.
3. What will we know that we didn’t know before? This question is similar to the
capability question but is focused more on information. What are the business intelligence and
analytics capabilities expected? What is the expected frequency and speed of information
required? Real-time or periodic updates?
4. What is the expected timing for establishing new capabilities? There are several
“gotchas” on ERP projects and one is timing. The new functionality may be implemented but it
may be missing data in order to be used. Some functionality requires transaction data or
historical data. In some cases this history can be converted but in others it doesn’t exist. Waiting
for 6 months or a year before exercising new capabilities is not a success for a client that isn’t
expecting to do so.
5. When scope changes, do expectations? This is another “gotcha” to be mindful of on
ERP projects. You develop the scope, you discuss expectations, and then you realign the scope
to meet the expectations. However sometimes scope changes. When scope changes, it is
important to reset expectations and make it clear what will be gained or loss.

20. Partner Collaboration

21. Partner Collaboration
Everyone should be willing to do what it takes to make the
project successful. Collaboration is about creating a team
with a “get it done” attitude who will not resort to saying
“That’s not my job”. I’ve identified three things that will foster
the right environment for collaboration on ERP projects:
1. Strong leadership from willing implementation
partners
2. Open lines of communication between
implementation partners
3. Defined roles and responsibilities for implementation
partners

22. Partner Collaboration
1. Strong leadership from willing implementation partners
“Leadership should be responsible for making sure that
contractual obligations are in line with ERP success
and allow team members to focus on being successful.”
• Collaboration must be part of the culture of the implementation
partners, driven by the leadership.
• Leadership must set the tone for collaboration. Whether it’s the
customer, vendors, or consultants, the team needs to hear from their
respective leadership that collaboration is expected.
• Disputes regarding contracts, statements of work, work product, etc.
should be handled by the leadership amongst the leadership.

23. Partner Collaboration
2. Open lines of communication
“Establishing times when teams will communicate and
using tools such as web meetings, video calls, and
conference calls will minimize the disadvantages of
having global teams.”
Open communication means knowing understanding:
• With whom we are communicating: who gets contacted for which
types of issues
• How we are communicating: email, customer service call, direct
phone, PM tools
• Process for escalation: when the process doesn’t yield results
how do we escalate

24. Partner Collaboration
3. Defined roles and responsibilities
“The best designs come from the collaboration
of ERP partners with the customer, applying
their unique business requirements that
provide a competitive advantage to proven best
practices and industry standards.”
The flip side of “That’s not my job” is team members should be careful of
trying to take the lead in areas that should be led by others. Everyone
should know what knowledge, skills, and abilities they bring to the table
and play to their strengths, while being a willing helper in all areas where
they can be helpful.

25. Partner Collaboration
3. Defined roles and responsibilities

26. Unlocking Business Value

27. Unlocking Business Value
Value on an ERP project comes from improving capabilities and becoming more
efficient. Taking the time to define the areas where the business should focus will
ensure that the right capabilities are implemented for a better impact to the
business. These six steps provide a path for defining value and infusing value
through in the implementation stages.

28. Unlocking Business Value
• The first step to unlocking value in an ERP
implementation is to understand what value
means to your business.
Determine the Business Value
Drivers:
• Set the strategy and direction by identifying the
areas where you would like to improve the
business.
Set the Strategy and Direction:
• Spend more time on the processes related to the
Strategic Areas of Improvement, than on all of
your other processes.
Determine the Business
Requirements:
• All processes are not equal. Don’t treat them as
such.
Design Business Processes to
meet the requirements:
• Where value attainment is concerned, if your
process delivers true value, it will be worth the
customization. If it does not, the customization
should be eliminated.
Design and Build the Solution
to the new processes:
• If you want to unlock business value from ERP,
you not only need the tools, you need the people
to use them properly.
Implement and Train users to
new processes and solution:

29. Leadership Through Change Management

30. Leadership Through Change Management
“The secret to successful change lies beyond the visible
and busy activities that surround change. Successful
change, at its core, is rooted in something much simpler:
How to facilitate change with one person.” *
You cannot manage change at an organizational level until
you know how to manage change with a single individual.
* ADKAR: A model for change in business, government and our community by Jeff Hiatt

31. Leadership Through Change Management
Organizational Change Management (OCM) is a framework for managing the
effects of changes in an organization. These changes can be related to new
business processes, organizational structure, technology, or cultural changes.

32. Leadership Through Change Management
Prosci® is a specific OCM framework that addresses the people side of change
management through a set of processes and tools designed to move individuals through
the stages of change defined as the ADKAR® model (Awareness, Desire, Knowledge,
Ability, and Reinforcement).
Leadership through Organizational Change Management is the act of aligning
OCM with executive sponsors to proactively lead their organizations through these stages
of change. This puts Change Management on equal footing with Project Management as
being critical to achieving and sustaining project success.
Successful execution of change management leads to business value by affecting the
human factor of each individual involved in the change in the following ways:

33. Leadership Through Change Management
Speed of Adoption
What is
Expected
Project
implementation
plan = adoption
plan
Phased roll out
of system =
phased adoption
What Actually
Happens
Adoption is
based on how
quickly people
get on board
There can be
passive
resistance or
active resistance
How Adoption
Can Be
Improved
Through
effective
communication
Through
sponsorship and
coaching

34. What is
Expected
Implicitly
assumed to be
100%
There may have
been an analysis
to estimate
utilization
What Actually
Happens
Some people
“opt out” of new
way
Can result in any
breakdown of
ADKAR
(Awareness, Desire,
Knowledge, Ability, and
Reinforcement)
How Utilization
Can Be
Improved
Through
reinforcement of
“Why”
Through
resistance
management
Leadership Through Change Management
Ultimate Utilization

35. What is
Expected
Assumed
ongoing
improvement
from the solution
Comes as a
result of new
processes,
technology,
behaviors, etc.
What Actually
Happens
Proficiency is
determined by
competence of
each individual
who is doing
their job a new
way
How
Proficiency Can
Be Improved
Through
effective training
and training
reinforcement
Through
resistance
management
Leadership Through Change Management
Proficiency

36. Summary: Top 6 Factors for ERP Success
Setting the foundation for ERP Success
• Set the tone and vision for success
• Develop realistic scope and expectations
• Communicate with and empower the team
• Be accountable for the project and team success
• Best of the best with knowledge of the business
• Mix of process, industry, solution experience
• Define the project scope
• Define expectations: what does success looks like
• Revise expectations when scope changes
• Strong leadership from willing partners
• Open lines of communication between partners
• Defined roles and responsibilities for partners
• Determine the value drivers for the business
• Identify improvement opportunities for value drivers
• Focus resources on improvement opportunities
• Speed of Adoption
• Ultimate Utilization
• Proficiency
Engaged Executive
Sponsorship
Experienced
Implementation Team
Aligning Scope and
Expectations
Partner Collaboration
Unlocking Business Value
Leadership Through
Change Management

37. Q&A.
Ocie D. Anderson
678.910.1297
oanderson@navmp.com
www.navmp.com