ERP Programme Health
Why ERP Programme Health Matters
The health of your ERP programme is a critical indicator of your organisation’s ability to deliver meaningful change. When your programme is in good health, it becomes a key tool for operational improvement, cultural alignment, and business growth. But when issues go unchecked, they can quickly escalate and lead to delays, spiralling costs, and disengaged teams.
Prioritising ERP programme health means looking beyond the technology to ensure your people, processes, and culture are all moving in the same direction. Data health is also a potential risk which is often overlooked or de-prioritised, a data health check can minimise future pain.
ERP programme health is all about creating the right conditions for success: clear objectives, strong leadership, and a shared commitment to change. At Nine Feet Tall, we know that regular health checks are essential for spotting early warning signs, maintaining momentum, and making sure your ERP journey delivers lasting value.
How to Assess Your ERP Programme Health
Assessing the health of your ERP programme is a holistic exercise. It’s not just about ticking off milestones or staying within budget, it’s about understanding how well your programme is delivering against its objectives and whether your teams are equipped to embrace new ways of working.
Start by reviewing your project’s scope and governance structure by looking at where you have:
- Clear Roles and Responsibilities: Ensure accountability is understood across the programme and that decision-making processes are effective.
- Strong Stakeholder Engagement: Active engagement from stakeholders at every level is essential to maintaining momentum and ensuring alignment.
- Effective Change Management: Consider whether your people are informed, prepared and supported throughout the transformation journey.
- Realistic Resources and Timelines: Review whether the skills, capacity, timelines and budgets available are sufficient to deliver programme objectives.
- Benefits Realisation Tracking: Measure progress against intended outcomes to ensure you remain on track to achieve the benefits that justified the investment.
A structured and honest assessment will highlight strengths and reveal areas requiring attention, allowing you to make informed decisions and maintain programme health.
Nine Feet Tall have been an exceptional partner for us, they joined a very ambitious piece of work which was already in flight, moving at pace and had very little structure. Remarkably they were able to understand the ask and add value and support very quickly. To me the differentiator between NFT and other consultancies is how ‘normal’ their consultants are, they fit in with our team instantly, they understood our culture, pain points and nuances and got to work! We have delivered a very significant piece of market leading work which will set us up for future success and we truly couldn’t have done it without NFT. Thank you for your support, challenge and sense of humour!
Grace Slater
Head of Transformation,
Sainsbury's
Key Indicators of a Health ERP Programme
A healthy ERP programme should have:
Clear, shared vision and objectives
A clearly defined vision helps align teams around common goals and ensures everyone understands what success looks like.
Strong governance and empowered leadership
Effective governance and decisive leadership provide direction, accountability and timely decision-making throughout the programme.
Active stakeholder engagement
Regular stakeholder involvement helps maintain alignment, build support and address concerns before they become barriers.
Robust change management and communication
Clear communication and structured change management help people adapt to new processes and ways of working.
Early identification and mitigation of risk
Recognising risks early allows organisations to take corrective action before issues impact delivery.
Continuous measurement of metrics
Tracking performance indicators helps monitor progress, identify trends and ensure benefits remain on track.
Tracking these indicators helps you stay ahead of potential issues and maintain momentum throughout your ERP journey.
Common Risks and How to Address Them
Every ERP programme will encounter risks at some point, but the difference between success and failure often comes down to how those risks are managed.
Common challenges include:
- Unclear requirements
- Scope creep
- Lack of stakeholder buy-in
- Insufficient change management
- Resource gaps
- Integration challenges
- Poor data quality
These issues can threaten progress, increase costs and delay business benefits if left unchecked.
Keeping ERP Programmes Healthy
Addressing risks starts with fostering a culture of openness and collaboration. Engage stakeholders early and often, communicate the reasons for change and provide ongoing support to your teams.
Strong governance, clear roles and rapid decision-making are essential for keeping programmes on track. Regular health checks enable organisations to identify issues before they escalate and adapt their approach where necessary.
At Nine Feet Tall, our ERP consultants help organisations assess, recover and strengthen ERP programmes to ensure they remain resilient, focused and aligned with business objectives.
ERP Health Check Tool
Use our free ERP Transformation Health Check tool today and get the answers you need to assure your programme.
How we work with you
At Nine Feet Tall, we will take the pain away and get projects over the line. We bring a practical and pragmatic approach to project recovery from our people-focused team. We thrive on the difficult and succeed by understanding stakeholder sensitivities with an agile and ‘just enough’ approach.
We re-build momentum, bring back the passion and help get back on track, whilst supporting teams to deliver successful go live.
Ready to strengthen your ERP programme?
Contact Nine Feet Tall to discuss how we can help assess programme health, reduce risk and improve delivery confidence.
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Frequently Asked Questions
Nine Feet Tall provides independent ERP programme assessments, recovery support and transformation expertise. We help organisations identify risks, strengthen governance, improve stakeholder alignment and create practical actions that support successful ERP delivery.
Warning signs can include missed milestones, unclear ownership, stakeholder disengagement, increasing scope, resource constraints, poor data quality and low user adoption readiness.
ERP programme health checks can be valuable at any stage of a transformation programme. Many organisations conduct them before key milestones, after programme challenges arise or as part of regular governance reviews.
Strong ERP Programme Health helps organisations identify risks early, maintain stakeholder confidence and improve the likelihood of successful delivery. Regular assessment helps prevent issues from escalating into costly delays or project failures.
ERP programme health refers to the overall effectiveness, stability and readiness of an ERP transformation programme. It considers factors such as governance, stakeholder engagement, risk management, change readiness, data quality and delivery progress.
Check Your ERP Health Today
Get in touch with one of our ERP experts and disucss the health of your ERP transformation today.
