Reason #3 Organisation that succeed, work cross functional and control the project scope together allowing them to focus resources on the areas that truly meet the objectives – irrespective of their department. The pitfall is that if you fail to do this executives think only of their own areas and this leads them to over promise and over commit often in contradiction with each other, this in turn leads to them to fail to achieve the success they planned and have paid for.

Therefore work together and only bite off what you can collectively swallow, keep scope small. Focused on your collective aims and how manageable they are. Do only what you need, understand what your organisation can cope with both from an execution and change perspective. Every additional scope you add to your project will need an additional project manager, a team and probably an integration manager to keep it all aligned. You know how it works … ERP goes left, HRIS goes right, now you can’t tie employees to roles, or authorisation to workflows ….. I know you have all been there and lived that!

Discussing this with my peers, we can’t tell you how many millions of USDs we have witnessed spent in meetings, licences and developments, that never get deployed. Consider how many of you have seen splinter projects, parallel projects, functional initiatives that have burned money without cross functional agreement and lead to no net gain. In fact they deprive the core project of key resources and set executive expectations too high. Keep the team focused on the GOALS you set at the beginning, not the dreams.

Let me be clear don’t do ERP, demand planning, financial transformation and lean conversions and payroll all at the same time. You will find it extremely hard to manage it and the business may not be able to change quick enough to cope. if you don’t yet realise that desire does not equal ability you may tear the company apart. Instead focus on what actually adds value to your company. As leaders you have to agree how best to focus and use the limited resources at your disposal. taking the alternative view point you can be the company of AND and not of OR, but that comes at a cost few truly understand and even less are prepared to pay for.

Remember
> Nothing comes out if the box – really everything will need some level of customisation, configuration, planning and change management to meet your needs.
> Almost everything will require some support and maintenance in the long run, always consider that.
> Plug in and play only really works on a Playstation not in business.
> Changing people without breaking productivity is a slow process and requires them to believe, not just do or understand.
> In adoption you may need to change your business processes to keep cost lower.
> If it sounds too good to be true it probably is.

Most importantly – Listen to your team, they are the experts you have already pay for. Their advice is worth 100 times that of a consultant.

If you don’t like what they have to say, either change them or change yourself. You will achieve little if you’re not both focused on the same destination.