IT project management professional
ERP system modernization is one of the most demanding projects a company can face. Over the past twenty years, I have led international ERP modernization projects in different industries and companies of different sizes. The technology, systems and software vendors have changed, but the recipe for successful projects has remained remarkably the same.
If you ask me what I've learned over the years, I'll say: An ERP project is not an IT project. It's a business transformation project.
In the early stages of my career, my focus as a project manager was strongly on the fundamentals of the project: scope, schedule, budget, resources and change management. These are still the cornerstones of an ERP project, but one thing stands out above all others: is there a genuine demand and appeal in the business for the system renewal? First of all, has the business owner been appointed and is he or she ready to put his or her personality on the line, ready to make difficult decisions and, if necessary, fight for the project?
The success of an ERP project largely depends on the collaboration between the IT project manager and the business representative. This was the single biggest reason why I led numerous successful implementations of a new ERP system for an international industrial group.
As a project manager, I can do my part to make collaboration and decision-making as smooth as possible. When a decision comes up, I gather the options, their justifications and impacts, and bring my own recommendation with me.
I have seen projects where building an enterprise resource planning system is seen as an internal IT effort that ultimately bloats the finished system and that's where the real problems begin.
An organization's own experts have the best understanding of their own business. However, an ERP upgrade may be a rare project for them. A major system upgrade may come up once or twice during their entire career.
An impartial expert with dozens of deployments knows from experience what is worth spending time on and what is worth preparing well in advance.
One good example is data.
Master data cleanup and migration are a familiar part of ERP upgrades. In an international company, you first need to figure out what information is in different systems, who owns it, and how to make the information work in the new environment.
Artificial intelligence can be used to identify errors in data masses and analyze field mappings between systems. Technology helps to process large amounts of data, but business still determines what is done with the data. Therefore, data processing requires both system expertise and business knowledge.
How do you get end users involved in an international project? How do you get acceptance testers in the target country to gather in a conference room for a week to run basic processes and try out local exceptions?
When I travel to the site myself to lead a testing round, the testers usually appreciate it and are more willing to spend their own time on the project.
At the same time, the project team gains valuable information about how the new system looks from the user's perspective. Practical testing also reveals local practices and situations that may not be noticed when designing the system.
The launch weekend is just one moment in a long project. Preparation for it begins much earlier.
I'm used to listing hundreds of implementation tasks with experts and envisioning different scenarios. If the real situation comes, is a new system (roll-back) really an acceptable option for the business? Who can I call during the implementation weekend and ask for help if necessary?
In one project, I had to "snap out of it" on a Saturday morning and get a decision from the company's management before the system was reopened to users.
It is at moments like these that the importance of preparation becomes concrete. When people know their roles, decision-making is organized, and the necessary contacts are known, the project team is able to focus on what is essential in the situation.
Looking back over two decades of working on ERP projects, systems have changed more than anything else. The technology around projects continues to evolve rapidly, and AI-assisted project management brings many new possibilities to the table.
However, human cooperation is still at the core of the project.
The business needs to know what the change is about. IT needs to be able to translate that goal into a workable entity. Users need to be involved before implementation. The project manager's job is to reconcile these perspectives and keep things moving.
That's where the value of my own experience lies. I've seen different ways to implement an ERP upgrade, work with different organizations and countries, and take projects through from setting up test environments to end-user testing and enhanced support.
Twenty years of experience doesn't mean you have a ready-made answer for every situation. It means you can recognize what's essential, make decisions, and move the project forward even when something new is ahead.
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