Preparing Your Team for ERP Implementation: A Guide to Navigating Change

If you decided to run a marathon, and you’re not ‘a runner’, you would hopefully consider doing some solid preparatory work and research before commencing this endeavour. Beginning an Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) implementation is no different: in order to set yourself and your team up for success, it is strongly recommended to focus on ERP implementation preparation first. Here are four things to consider:

Defining clear project goals and objectives

Running a marathon for a personal best time, and running a marathon for the atmosphere and mental health benefits are two very different things, requiring different approaches. For your ERP project, be sure to really hone in on your goals, scope and objectives – which problem(s) is/are this piece of technology trying to solve? It is advisable to be as specific as possible upfront in terms of your implementation strategy, because that will only aid the precision and detail of your implementation.

Building and aligning your implementation team

It will be the people, not the technology, that render your ERP system implementation a success. Unite brilliant people in a specially designated team to lead your implementation efforts and ensure they are aligned on the goals, scope and objectives. It is also of crucial importance that these people have the authority and autonomy to make decisions so that progress is not mired in bureaucracy. It is also strongly advantageous to include someone who has prior ERP implementation experience – such as an ERP implementation consultant.

Fostering organisation-wide engagement

It is likely that the introduction of an ERP system will bring about significant change across numerous departments of any organisation, if not the whole organisation, which mean bring in the wider team to the ERP implementation preparation process is key. Of course, your project team will be vital to drive the project forwards, but to really land the project with the wider staff, try as far as possible to involve them in the process. You want your colleagues to feel like they are a part of the change, rather than having the change done ‘to’ them. Consider your change management approach and award it equal weight to your project or programme management planning.

Developing a comprehensive training strategy

Too often companies distil training down to the simplistic view of ‘systems training’ – for example, ‘Finance are getting a new Finance system, so Finance need training on the new system’. It’s essential to take a holistic approach to training and think about every group of people who will interface with the new system, and how their tasks and behaviours will need to change. Employees will need time to adjust to these new ways of working, so in your planning aim to give them ample opportunities to practise what they learn before they need to apply their knowledge in the new system to real data. Comprehensive training is a vital component of ERP implementation preparation.

An ERP project is a marathon, not a sprint, and Nine Feet Tall can help really set the project, and the company, up for success. Get in touch today. 

Rachel Hurst
Senior Consultant
RacheH@NineFeetTall.com

About Rachel

Rachel brings a wealth of project and programme management experience, having managed complex software-as-a-service projects and digital publishing programmes before joining Nine Feet Tall. Since joining the company, Rachel has deepened her experience in Change Management. She has been integral in a wide range of projects, from multi-year and multi-million pound warehouse management system implementations, to organisational design consultations, international office moves and transformation programmes. Rachel is a qualified Change Management and PRINCE2 Practitioner and also a keen speaker of German and Spanish. Driven by a passion for organisation, transparency and streamlining, her particular focus is on running a strong PMO.

Outside of Nine Feet Tall, Rachel puts her organisational skills to good use as the President of Wokingham Speakers, a branch of the Toastmasters International public speaking and leadership organisation, as well as leading the charge on the PTA at her daughter’s school. Besides these two voluntary roles, Rachel is a proud and busy mum of two young girls who continue to help her practice her creativity, flexibility and agility skills, all of which are essential for working on complex transformation projects.