POST-MERGER ERP UPGRADE
Opportunity
An enterprise-wide need existed for effective project and change management methodologies, processes, tools, and templates to manage an ERP upgrade to the parent company while integrating a newly acquired company from its legacy system to the newly upgraded ERP.
Risk
Due to a lack of a formal Program Management Organization or an established project management methodology, the organization had an increased risk for a poorly planned upgrade that would result in potential functionality deficiencies, business interruption impacts, unhappy end users, executives, and vendors.
Our Role
Stache & Associates was responsible for the project management and change management activities associated with the ERP upgrade and integration. Examples of our role were to develop a plan to minimize business interruption, provide visibility to key activities, facilitate user buy-in and acceptance, and facilitate proactive identification and mitigation of project risks and issues. Additional roles were to manage scope, timeline, and budget; improve participation of stakeholders through regular, timely communication; ensure the target solution satisfied business requirements; establish clear roles and responsibilities for all project participants; and drive associated accountability.
Action
Stache & Associates created a project charter clearly defining project scope, governance structure, key deliverables by phase, roles and responsibilities, and a detailed project plan clearly outlining all milestones, activities, target completion dates, and assigned resources. Additionally, we developed a formal communication plan that outlined key stakeholder groups and the timing and content of the appropriate messaging. We compiled lessons learned from a previous JDE upgrade, created status templates catered to various audiences to provide overall project health, developed a SharePoint project portal that enabled all team members to view and collaborate on project documentation, compiled a detailed business requirement worksheet documented during discovery workshops with end users, and conducted a fit gap analysis from the requirements’ worksheet to implement JD Edwards in other client companies.
Benefit
Stache & Associates developed a repeatable process with supporting tools that can be used for future projects that require a strong project management and change management approach that increases the success of projects to meet their goals, objectives, and benefits.