The Disconnect Between Apps and Processes

As I have wandered the landscape of enterprise applications and their implementation projects, I have always led conversations on the importance of solid business processes to successful application implementations.  Too many times we have watched a company twist itself and its people into knots over getting an ERP system up and running on an artificial deadline that incents their people to throw good business sense out the window.  This tendency isn’t just about ERP.  It’s about PLM, CRM, SCM, MES, and the rest of the alphabet soup that is the enterprise application  landscape.

 My conclusions are that that the leader of an implementation project should be a business leader.  Even if that leader has little application experience.  That leader’s main job should not be about budget and timeline of the implementation itself.  It should be about making sure the new application brings more to the business process than it takes away.  Because that’s what enterprise applications are all about; balancing the existing good parts of the business processes against the potential of new business processes.  Too many times I have seen enterprise application team leaders go hell-bent for leather to meet budget and time constraints at the expense of getting the best business process in place.  The leader rationalizes this approach through assuming that the business process leader will fix things once the implementation is complete.  Make the implementation team leader be measured on and incented on the business process metrics.

 Of course all you certified project managers and comptrollers are freaking out now.  I can hear the ranting about fiscal responsibility and resource management.  That’s because those people look at the world isolated to the project.  They don’t care and aren’t incented to care about what happens post-project in the real world.  Some people will say that it’s the responsibility of the executive management team to make sure that the balance exits.  But let’s face it; most senior executives don’t have enough view of the details of the business processes to make a balanced judgement on these type of projects.  Every enterprise application project I have been involved in, as both a project member and as a business leader on the receiving end, has required significant post-project time, money, and resources to clean up the business process carnage left by any implementation team that is only focused on the deadline or their own project budget.  This is a fact that senior executives don’t see or is hidden from them.

 So is the answer to stop all enterprise application project?  A partial answer is “absolutely not.”  The full answer is stop the traditional budgeting and timeline process.  The entire project plan has to be extended beyond the “go-live” date.  The project team must continue supporting all aspects of the business process, not just the application.  The business process leader should have been the project lead.  The timeline and budget must be built based on the overall change in the business process, not a go-live date.  I personally have been there and done that.  I was given the manufacturing-side of an ERP implementation, and then brought into help run the plant that was part of the ERP project.  I can tell you that my perspective completely changed on what was good for the plant and what was good for the ERP project.  One of the first things I did was make sure the ERP project didn’t go away until all business processes, as measured by our own metrics, were functioning at least as well as prior to the ERP project.  This laid the foundation a massive continuous improvement project that used the information made available in the ERP system to produce millions in savings and cost avoidance.

 So to sum it all up, there are some key things you should do and consider:

• Name a business process leader as the enterprise application project lead
• Don’t underestimate how many internal resources you will need, regardless of how many consultants you hire
• Set the project deadline and budget as secondary metrics for intermediate project tracking only
• Use the actual business metrics as the final metrics for the project
• Make sure project personnel go back into the business to manage the business processes

There are many others, but the above points are a good start.  It is the start of keeping your project continuously aligned with your business processes.  Always remember and remind your teams that the goal of the enterprise application project isn’t just the enterprise application.  Its improving or building a business process that is part of growing your organization’s capabilities.