I was just introduced to a company in Durham, NC that has spent more than 900 hundred hours with a software developer trying to get a custom order entry system developed. It’s taken nearly 3 years and they are still unable to launch the tool because of inconsistencies in the way the system handles sales transactions. Their biggest questions: Why did this happen and how do we fix it?

In my experience, there are some common culprits that cause projects to fail:

1. Missing or lousy requirements
A lot of times the customer tries to reduce costs and some of the first places they look to are Business Process Review and Optimizations and Requirements Gathering.

2. Scope Creep
Too often, the vendor’s project manager is not experienced enough to lead the customer through the Change Management process and allows “little requests, just this once” to morph into larger monster which consume time and resources.

3. Lack of End-User Involvement
Typically we see companies delegate mid-level managers to Core Team roles. I completely understand the thinking behind this – these are the people who have proven that they can get things done. However, they are also usually removed enough from the daily transaction of business that they can’t effectively serve as subject-matter-experts.  Without the right people in the right roles, bad decisions can easily be made.

4. Ineffective Change Management
As mentioned regarding Scope Creep, allowing changes to occur in the scope can easily derail any project. But Change Control is not the only consideration here. Change Management within the culture of the organization is a huge ship to sail. Our old friend FUD (Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt) shows up and infiltrates the ranks with ease. I have heard the following impressions expressed “This is just another management bright idea that is going to fizzle”, “This is another way of eliminating jobs”, “Another whiz-bang system from the IT guys! Remember when we couldn’t ship for a week when they built the last one?”, “I’m an old dog, I don’t know nothing about these computers”.  All of these are statements that I have heard more than once and they can all lead to resistance or infrequently, sabotage.

5. Poor Quality Control
Technologists left to their own devices may or may not have tight, disciplined quality control mechanisms. A misapplication of Agile Development could be seen as a developer releasing small pieces of code that escapes integration testing. Data validation and report validation that is not done in a comprehensive manner with controls will, of course, lead to errors in the system after GoLive.

Recognizing these characteristics early can help prevent your project from derailing, but what if it’s too late? In my next article I will review the steps necessary to assess, take control and rein-in a failing project.

As always, I’d love to hear your thoughts or comments below. Have you had similar experiences? What approaches have you taken to remediate?

The ERP or CRM selection process can be a long and sometimes frustrating process. Vendors have been reviewed and site visits completed. The contract has been signed . . . now what? The next 30 days are crucial to launching the project successfully and it’s quite possible that the vendor won’t have resources available for at least 30 days. This leaves a vacuum that can disrupt the momentum of your team. The following 7 steps can help you keep the team focused and help launch your project successfully.

1. Behind the scenes at the Vendor:

It can take up to 30 days for the vendor to “free up resources”. It’s quite rare for a vendor to have Consultants and Project Managers waiting for you to sign the contract so they can spring into action. Once a Project Manager is assigned he or she will begin reviewing internal resources and begin planning the schedule of activities.  The Project Manager and Consultants will need some time to review the documents and processes that have been gathered about your company. The Project Manager will begin to setup the project artifacts such as the initial schedule, project management website, communication plans and a definition of the scope and project charter.

2. Defining the Core Team:

Many times members of the “Selection Committee” are retained as members of the “Core Team”, if not, it’s important to determine who the “Subject Matter Experts” will be for each functional area. Be careful to select people who either, have a long history with the company and are knowledgeable about many areas, or people who are newer to the organization, but have been involved in a system implementation previously. Regardless, it’s very important that these people be given the time and support necessary to act in the company’s best interest on the Core Team. These individuals will be shaping the future of the organization and this is not a part-time job.  Make sure to adequately define the scope of their involvement early and transition existing projects or responsibilities to other individuals. The quality of the input and efforts of the Core Team is one of the main factors for a successful implementation.

3. Core Team Structure and Governance:

Depending on the maturity of workgroup collaboration in your organization, it may be necessary to take several days to introduce or review the qualities of an effective team. This should include etiquette, leadership and process. Topics to consider will include change control mechanisms, project management structure and decision making models.

4. Kick-off:

An effective kick-off is very important to the morale of the team and the momentum of the project. It’s very important to coordinate this with the Project Manager assigned by the Vendor. Insist upon having the Consultants who will be assigned attend the Kick-off meeting, introduce themselves and describe how they will be involved with the project, what their role will be and what they will ask of the Core Team. The Core Team Leader should prepare the team to present an overview of their function, their known strengths and weaknesses, comfort level with technology, any risks that they may see with the project at this stage (such as conflict with other corporate initiatives, company schedule, etc) and some definition as to what improvements they anticipate in their area as a result of the new system – measurable targets that will be tracked throughout the project and post GoLive. It’s very important to have the Executive Sponsor and other leadership attend the Kick-off meeting to show support and describe ways in which they are prepared to support the Core Team members and the project.

5. Prepare the Infrastructure:

Most projects require additional infrastructure such as servers, software licenses, more robust disaster recovery options, etc. The local IT resources should be working with the vendor to setup, test and deploy any required system upgrades to support the project. This may be back-end/infrastructure or updated systems for Core Team members. To facilitate this, requirements should have been defined as part of the review process and the necessary procurement process should have taken place as soon as a decision was made.

6. Conflicts / Competing Initiatives:

There are always competing initiatives or conflicting schedules that need to be identified and managed as part of the ongoing Risk Management portion of Project Management. Many times this is seen in other areas of the business such as Lean Process initiatives, new product launches, tradeshow schedules and ISO or other compliance requirements.  The important thing is to realize that these conflicts will arise and must be managed effectively to reduce the impact to the project.

7. War Room:

The concept of a War Room seems unnecessary to many organizations. The resistance is usually due to limited space and competing needs for existing space. I have to state adamantly, that clients who have moved their Core Team members to a dedicated location through the duration of the project have had much greater success than ones that didn’t.  By doing this the leadership sends a very powerful message to the rest of the company: “It’s not ‘business as usual’, ‘these people have been temporarily reassigned and are dedicated to this project’ and ‘this is a really big thing – we will hold our monthly Employee Appreciation Lunches at a local restaurant for the next 6 months’”.

However, realistically, it IS a pain – especially when there really isn’t anywhere that can be dedicated. I have seen some very creative approaches such as: renting a “construction trailer” for the Core Team, building an elevated mezzanine addition, relocating to an adjacent floor in a multi-tenant building or even separate office space in a nearby building or perhaps (gasp!) repurposing the Executive Board Room for this project! Imagine the message sent to the rest of the organization – and realistically, the Board prefers to meet at the country club or at an offsite meeting facility anyhow!

8. Business Processes:

It’s very important for your Core Team to have a thorough understanding of the basics of Business Process Mapping. For many organizations, this may be a review of principles learned and used in Lean Process projects or ISO/Quality initiatives. If not, a complete introduction of the concepts, tools and terminology is very important – Business Process Optimization is another of the key requirements to making your solution and your organization fit well together.

The organization builds a lot of momentum during the selection process, it’s very important to keep that momentum going and demonstrate effectiveness in ramping up the actual implementation project. Although many vendors manage this process very well, it’s not uncommon to see the transition from the sales team to the services team be bumpy. If you don’t see a plan for the first 30 days, make sure you collaborate with the vendor to lay out a plan of action.

You guys are awesome! Energetic, professional – Man! You can whip up a Powerpoint presentation in minutes that would make Steve Jobs envious! (Obvious stretch there. Hang on, you’ll see where I’m going). Your presentation skills rival that of Martin Luther King, John F. Kennedy and even President Obama! Your willingness to bend over backwards, take a loss “just this one time” and offer free licenses and products in order to close the deal today are nothing short of amazing!

Most of you have probably figured out that I am frustrated with enterprise software sales people. Don’t get me wrong, I am not going to blindly lump an entire group of people together under a dark cloud, but the ones that are bad are downright horrendous!

Here are some examples of recent “anomalies” I have seen firsthand:

• Sales person recommends that the client eliminate the purchase of a particular module to “keep the price low” because the next point release of the software will have that functionality embedded in the core. Guess what? The point release came, the functionality was there, but had an increased licensing cost from when they would have originally purchased it as a separate module!
• Salesperson offers to include additional modules for no extra license cost. When the implementation schedule is presented by the professional services consultants the functionality is not included – when inquiries are made the answer is “the licenses are free, but professional services time to implement the functionality will cost another $65k”!
• Salesperson offers to include additional reporting and analytics tools for “free”. After the ink is dry a newly included IT member identifies that the “free” tools will require an additional investment of more than $15,000 in the server platform and admin training required to support it!

These are not extreme examples, nor are they isolated. Again, this isn’t to say that all enterprise software sales reps are bad news, but c’mon guys!

Don’t do this. Have some integrity. If your product isn’t a good fit, stop trying to shoehorn it in and move on to where you can add real value. If your produce has shortcomings, don’t whitewash them – drive change through your product management team. If your prices aren’t competitive, shine a spotlight on that in your sales management organization.  Stand up, make a change and reflect the integrity that is needed to reduce the swelling of the black eye that can be perceived against you all.

At Lionshare Software, our Consultants sign an Ethics Pledge in front of every customer at the beginning of each engagement.

Many of us have heard throughout our careers that we need to ”rise above the petty politics” or “pay no attention to office politics and just focus on doing good work”. That mind-set can kill an ERP or CRM project. How can you predict that politics will have an impact on your project? A simple formula exists:

If #of people on the team > 1 Then Political Influence = ∞

I’m using that equation to humorously point out that anytime you have a project that involves other people you must be aware of political motives and agendas. Every one of us has different wants, needs and desires – some of them are transparent and shared, some of them are secretive and destructive.

Recently I was involved on a project where we were selected as a 3^rd party project manager to assist our client through the ERP implementation process. The client, as many are, was stretched thin with resources, working on lean operating principles and had a tight budget to work with – sound familiar? That’s a pretty apt description of most companies these days. But where this client was different is that they had a turf-war going on between two areas of the executive leadership team – maybe that’s not too different from many companies either, in fact, we probably should have seen the problem and addressed it more quickly. Ultimately, one newly-promoted executive gained a foothold and decided that external project management wasn’t necessary and that his group could be solely responsible for managing the project. Of course, this is the same person who took every opportunity he could to publicly remind us that they “still have a business to run” whenever asked to attend meetings, provide input, approve process documents or contribute to the project in any way.

A project post-mortem revealed that there were definite signs we should have paid closer attention to early on in the project – these 5 points are listed below to help you better manage the mine field of project politics.

1. Resistance
This particular team member resisted our recommendations, methodology and approach at every turn. Despite the fact that this methodology and approach is what initially won us the engagement and demonstrated the value we would bring to the project.

2. Gridlock
In hindsight, he prevented effective decision making by stalling, barnstorming and creating general confusion and uncertainty around the most minor activities – selecting individuals from his team to attend training for example.

3. Circumnavigation
OK, I used a thesaurus for that one! It’s just a fancy way of saying that he used the old “end around” play as a standard form of communication. Instead of making suggestions or discussing differing views in an open group, he would go around individually to team members to let them know that he wasn’t aligned with the current approach and that they shouldn’t be either.

4. Passing the Buck
This is often seen as finger-pointing, or the “it’s not my fault” syndrome. This team leader wouldn’t complete assignments and then would feign that the instructions were not clear or the deadline wasn’t communicated. He saw this as a viable excuse despite the fact that all of his peers completed the task successfully and on time without confusion.

5. Grandstanding
Everyone is entitled to toot their own horn when they accomplish something valuable, but this person will use every public interaction to lift up himself and his team as examples of efficiency and commitment despite visible evidence to the contrary.

Now that I’ve pointed out ways to identify political wranglers you may realize that you have one or more of those on your current project. Check back for the next half of this article where I discuss ways to effectively deal with this situation.

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If you are planning an ERP or CRM implementation please surf over to Lionshare Software to see how we can help guide you through the Product Selection Maze, Vendor Negotiation Minefield and help manage your project effectively.

During a recent project we worked on I heard some very disturbing things from the client. It was a level of gloating and bravado over the terms they had negotiated with their ERP vendor. It quickly became obvious that these people regarded most of their vendors as adversaries and not as real business partners.

I don’t think it was the aggressive discount in licensing costs that bothered me as much as the desire to “get something for nothing” – a professor of mine back in Michigan always started each term by reminding the class that one of the primary principles in business can be summed up with a mnemonic – “TINSTAAFL” There’s No Such Thing As A Free Lunch! The software vendor’s salespeople were happy to throw in extra functionality such as HR and Payroll modules, analytics and reporting tools and self-paced training in place of a much more valuable instructor-led educational foundation. Additionally, the vendor stripped hours out of the Consulting, Integration and Project Management areas of the project. The sales team also wasn’t aware that the analytics and reporting tools that now were considered an integral part of the financial reporting scheme required another $10,000-$15,000 investment in supporting server infrastructure and administrator training.

The thing that bothered me the most however, was that the aggressive negotiating actually had a personal impact on the consultants and project managers assigned to the project. In this instance, the client bragged that they had negotiated non-payment of travel time. The end result was that the consultants and project managers on the team lost more than 8 hours per week in billable time travelling. Why is this a big deal? In the professional services organization of most software companies the consultants and project managers’ performance metrics are based on, among other things, Customer Satisfaction and Utilization Target, or how many of their waking hours are billable. I’ve seen with some large companies that the Utilization Target was so high that even using their generous vacation allotment prevented the consultant from achieving their target, losing bonus pay and even possibly being placed on a probation of sorts. To mitigate these challenges motivated consultants will do whatever it takes to hit their target – this usually leads to increased weekend travel and off-hours work, among other things. For young, single professionals this can have an impact on their social life, launch a lifelong struggle with work-life balance, impact friendships and relationships and even lead to unhealthy behavior. For older, more experienced consultants, this can have a significant impact on the family. More time away from the family puts additional stress on the spouse left behind, whether it’s loneliness, shouldering the burden of managing the household or additional time away from children. The net result? More often than not, this perpetuates the adversarial relationship, adds considerable stressors to vital members of the project team and ultimately, reduces the overall quality of the project.

What are the options? I think it’s very important to keep in mind that you’re entering into a relationship that not only includes the faceless executives of the organization, but also the real people who will be committed to making you happy and delivering quality in the project. Keep perspective based not only on negotiations that your customers drive with you, but also, the relationships you have with your own employees. The professional services team, for a short time, becomes a part of your company’s culture – think of them as you would your own employees.

I would never recommend that you should shy away from effective negotiating. We make this an integral phase of every project. But I encourage you to be aware of the final impact to the project, and to the people who will, for a short time, call your company Home after the contract is signed.

What are your thoughts? Have you been impacted by a contract negotiated too harshly? As an ERP or CRM Consumer, have you seen quality suffer from such hard-nosed negotiation?

I have written whitepapers, presentations, proposals and general business papers to support our consulting business. As an amateur cook I have even kept a sporadic blog at Chowbelly but I have never really taken the time to publish items of interest to a public place for Lionshare Software. In the past I have just forwarded interesting articles, nuggets of wisdom and occasionally bits of humor to friends and current customers. Well, that’s gonna change – it’s not a New Year’s Resolution, just a commitment to the business consulting, ERP and CRM communities at large.

If I have a thought or an experience that might be valuable to you I will post it here and I hope you enjoy and are enriched.

In the meantime, feel free to click on the “About” link to find out more about me or surf over to Lionshare Software to find out more about how we serve the ERP and CRM communities.

Best Regards,
Scott Priestley