Is it really possible to guarantee ERP implementation success? As you approach your go-live date, there’s no turning back, and after spending a significant amount of money and countless hours on your system go-live checklist, it better work. With so much invested in your ERP implementation, it is vital to ensure your go-live goes as smoothly as possible.
There are several ways that a go-live can go wrong, but we have found that proper preparation can mitigate the risks and facilitate a successful ERP implementation.
Here are our top 16 tips on achieving a successful ERP go-live.
1. Be Ready for the Unknown
Even with a detailed system go-live plan, there is still some fear of the unknown. Even if this isn’t your first ERP software upgrade, you can still experience anxiety over the unknown of this kind of project. Each project will have its idiosyncrasies, and the best you can do to ensure a smooth ERP implementation is to be prepared for just about anything.
2. Know Your Risks and Mitigate Them
Knowing the risks of a project is vital when preparing for a go-live date. Inevitably, there are risks in any project, and while testing helps to minimize them, even that is not a guarantee. It is important to know why software projects fail. The first item on the software go-live checklist is to focus on the involvement of the end-users and subject matter experts (SMEs) during user acceptance testing (UAT). The more qualified people that can be involved in UAT, then you have a greater chance of achieving a successful go-live. If few are involved in UAT, your go-live will become the testing phase and add unnecessary risk to the project. If that does happen, it’s still possible to go live successfully, but only if you are willing to set up mitigations. This would necessitate having developers on site, ready to reconfigure your software in real-time and fix issues as they become apparent.
3. Successful Go-Lives are Created Months Before the Cutover
A successful go-live begins well before the switch is flipped and the new software is running. Like many big events in life, the only way to ensure it goes well is to be ready. The best approach to successfully implementing an ERP solution is acknowledging it takes months of hard work behind the scenes, not just a day, week, or even month of diligent cutover efforts.
4. Get Your Best Resources Lined Up Ahead of Time
Another essential for your ERP implementation plan is to have your implementation resources on stand-by before the big day. Even with careful preparation, there is never a guarantee that problems or stumbling blocks won’t pop up once the new software is live. However, if you have the technical resources in place to handle these hurdles in real-time, it won’t feel like an emergency. If something such as a billing error occurs, having competent people available to jump in and start making corrections will help keep everyone calm, cool, and collected.
5. Rehearse, Rehearse, Rehearse
An ERP go-live can be a bit like a big musical production. Everything is set up behind the scenes, everyone knows what roles they have to play, and then it’s showtime. To make it all go as effortlessly as possible, the best thing you can do for yourself, and your team is to rehearse. This means testing, testing, and more testing. You should conduct trial runs of every scene and ensure the programming team runs through ways they might fix problems should they arise. Completing these steps helps ensure a calm go-live.
6. Be Ready for the Long Haul
Everything in your ERP go-live project plan may seem to be gearing up for just one thing: go-live. But don’t forget that there’s more to it than just those first days or even the first week. Once the “opening night” is over, success will come from how you handle what happens next. You will need to adjust and improve the system as it is used and as errors are discovered.
7. Think Outside the Box
Creating a successful software go-live isn’t only about the project plan and the rehearsals, it is about the people. After all, they are the ones who will inherit the software and either adopt it and use it or reject it. Sometimes the best thing you can do for your project is take care of your staff. At ERP Advisors Group, we’ve worked with many clients, and one of our most successful go-lives featured a secret ingredient: massage therapists. Having them on hand calmed nerves and led to a successful go-live at a time when people were stressed about their complicated project. Think of ways to keep staff relaxed during your implementation, and you might find your own secret ingredient for project success. Bringing in meals to feed the team is very helpful too.
8. Extend Your Timeline if Needed
The best-case scenario is the project goes live without a hitch, but that’s not always the reality. Unfortunately, no matter how much preparation you’ve done, things will come up that cause problems. When this happens, there’s nothing wrong with extending your timeline. At the end of the day, the only thing that really matters is having a system that allows your staff to function effectively, and your organization to expand. Even if it takes another month or two for you to prepare for your go-live day, but you end up with the best system in place, then it is still a success.
9. Emphasize User Acceptance Testing
User Acceptance Testing (UAT) isn’t just about making sure that the software works. More importantly, it’s about ensuring the users will accept and work with the new system. You can put your ERP through dozens of tests, but if employees are unable to use it, your project will be considered a failure. Also, be wary of users who report that all is well – this may be a sign they haven’t adequately tested the software! Make sure that what they asked for is what they received, and if they discover they need something different, consult with your SMEs and implementation partner to find a solution. The last thing you want is to reach the end of the project and find that the users aren’t using the system because this means the entire project was a waste.
10. Data, Data, Data, Data
When it comes to the success of your go-live, we cannot express this enough: data is the fundamental reason why businesses implement new software. Of course, there are other issues to be handled like process automation, new user interfaces, and legacy technology, but, ultimately, the reason businesses need new systems is they want insight into the organization that they can’t currently get. Cleaning your data as best as you can during the conversion process, and at go-live, is vital. The secret? Conduct dress rehearsals with your full sets of master data and then with transactional data as your system build-out can accommodate it. This process allows you to see the data in the system and whether it “fits” or not. Better to find out now that you missed something in the source data or that something isn’t configured right to accommodate loading the new data in, well ahead of go-live!
11. Set Realistic Expectations
This is an important factor that a lot of people miss: you must set realistic expectations about your project. Don’t rely on luck or hope that your go-live will be perfect and happen without a single problem. Even if your implementation goes well overall, you still want to set clear expectations for the cutover. Start talking to your bank, your company’s stakeholders, and anyone else who could be affected by the software update early in the process to let them know you are switching systems, what day it will happen, and that there’s a possibility reports could be delayed. Ideally, no delays will occur, but it is better to set low expectations and then work to exceed them.
12. Give Incentives and Acknowledgements
People work tirelessly during an ERP implementation. They come in early, stay late, and put in time on the weekends – all while still doing their day job. Even if you bring in help to backfill some positions, there’s no doubt that good staff will bend over backward to make sure your go-live is a success. One of the best things you can do for your implementation is to incentivize or reward your employees after going live. It can be as simple as an email acknowledging and thanking specific people for their commitment and contribution to the project. You could even send gifts to an employee’s family thanking them for allowing their family member to give up so much time to ensure the success of the project. Whatever you choose, it’s important to let your people know how much you appreciate them and their efforts.
13. Trust Your Intuition
Another important thing to know about an ERP go-live is that all indications for a bad go-live happen early. It’s not as if the project will be going along just fine and then suddenly at the cutover everything becomes a terrible mess. Projects just don’t work that way. If you start to see things go south, trust your intuition and do something about it. For instance, if you see that the Project Manager your implementation partner assigned to the project is disorganized, let the project sponsor on the implementation side know about it. Don’t be afraid to speak up, but also remember to escalate appropriately and give them ample opportunity to fix the situation.
14. Know When to Ignore (or Listen) to Naysayers
On every project, you’re bound to have a person who might not be entirely on board. A successful ERP go-live will depend on knowing when to ignore them and when to listen. Truthfully, most of the time you can ignore the naysayers, especially if they don’t have a lot of authority in regard to the project. If you’re confident in your process, checklist, and risk mitigations, listening to them could just slow down the project if you try to handle their imagined issues. Adversely, if they are in a leadership position and are identifying reasonable concerns such as inadequate testing in a specific area, then you may want to listen. They could find a problem you weren’t aware of and lead you to a resolution before it affects the entire project.
15. Remember: A Bad Go-Live Can Turn into a Success
On some projects, it’s impossible to do all the preparation and testing needed because the staff is simply too busy. While this proposition can make the go-live more complicated, you can still do the project and be fine in the end. If testing isn’t an option, be sure to have mitigations in place to prevent unwanted disasters. If people can’t test beforehand, you will need to turn the go-live into the testing phase. This is not the most ideal way to go live, but if you are prepared for it and have staff ready to perform fixes, it can still work.
16. Don’t Forget to Create a Go-Live Checklist
Having an in-depth go-live checklist is vital to your success, yet it can be one of the most overlooked factors in a project. This may be because many assume the checklist will be created by the implementation partner and will contain everything that needs to be done to go live. While your vendor should provide a cutover checklist, it may not include every necessary step; therefore, each company should create its own list of actions to accomplish and items needed for the go-live to be a success.
Here are some examples of things that should be included in a go-live checklist:
There’s nothing worse than putting time, money, and effort into an unsuccessful go-live. But with all these ingredients, you should have the recipe for executing a successful go-live that will enable your company to begin to realize the benefits of its new ERP. Contact us here at ERP Advisors Group if you need help with your next implementation.