5 Management Mistakes That Will Sabotage your ERP Implementation

As an ERP implementation expert, I'm used to offering advice on how to make your company's implementation a success. But for a moment, I'd like to talk about failure. Even with all of my experience and expertise, there are ways that my client companies can so thoroughly undermine the implementation process that the only way to dig ourselves out is through more money and time than anyone is willing to spend.

I'm a fan of the NCIS head slap. Problem is, if I really did one, my butt would land in jail and all my money would be taken by a huge lawsuit. So accept this written head slap, folks. Pay Attention! And learn from the failures of projects past.

1. Lack of Top Management Participation

This author finds that, "Almost everyone with whom we interacted on the subject vehemently stated that non-participation of the top management can prove to be the most fatal mistake," (emphasis mine). I agree. The buck stops at the top.

The executive thinks he can successfully manage multiple high-priority projects. Multi-tasking is a necessary skill of top managers, right? It's one thing for the executive to multi-task, to switch between projects. It's quite another issue for the project team. When the top manager doesn't participate in the project, she doesn't get a good feel for how it's going, how it's a truly overwhelming change for the company and challenging work for the implementation team. So the top manager delegates down another small project or two, thinking if he can multi-task, so can they.

The needs analysis, the prototype, the data integration, the training - everything underway gets ...