By Autor: Borja Arrizabalaga.
Any one of us, if you do a little research on the internet, filter and analyze the information about the errors that cause failure in the implementations of an ERP, you can arrive at a list of errors very similar to the one I propose at the end of this article. In this list I only list the 6 mistakes that I consider to be most commonly committed just before the “delivery” of the project (some in the analysis phase) and that can “sink” it into the execution phase.
In this first post, I wanted to go a little deeper because we repeat the mistakes. If any company has access to the information on the Internet about the causes of failure in the implementation of an ERP, and the consultants-implementers have (or are supposed) knowledge about them, why do we repeat them? In the next post, which I hope will be released by the end of next week, I will delve more into the 6 errors themselves and the importance of avoiding them.
His reading made me reflect on the following question: “What can we do to prevent people and organizations from repeating mistakes?”, Always based on the premise that no one wants to fail intentionally.
First, we have to be aware that we are prone to error and if we fall into it, we must be able to take measures to cushion its consequences and not to repeat them in the future (learning process). To start, it is very difficult to say “I was wrong”; However, recognizing the error becomes the first step in order to be able to carefully analyze the process that led us to make a wrong decision. So we can say that the first link in the chain of a learning process is the recognition of error (with naturalness and detachment from the fear that paralyzes us) and its acceptance as part of the process. However, saying “I was wrong,” according to experts, is not so easy. Here are some of the causes:
According to K athryn Schulz (who has devoted himself to studying human error), we are often caught by a “sick” need to feel that we are right, which produces a blinding effect
Errors put us in evidence, not only to ourselves (loss of self-esteem), but also to others
Mistakes make us believe that we are not capable (loss of self-esteem)
Error is synonymous with failure, and failure is frowned upon and penalized by our society. In spite of the continuous “chorreo” of phrases in the social networks, the words with their use often end up losing “their meaning”:
“Every failure teaches man something he needs to learn.” (Charles Dickens)
“Experience is the name everyone gives to their mistakes.” (Oscar Wilde)
“If you fall seven times, get up eight.” (Chinese proverb)
“I have missed more than 9,000 shots throughout my career, I have lost almost 300 games, 26 times I have missed the last shot that a game decided. I have failed over and over again in my life and that is precisely the reason why. The one that I have been successful. “(Michael Jordan)
For all of the above, our first reaction to an error is to think that it is not for our cause, “the guilty ones are always others or the situation”. In this context, companies have to develop an organizational culture that does not penalize error and that entails a learning process, basically creating a climate of trust. This climate will allow people to assume and acknowledge their mistakes “without shame” and learn so they do not repeat themselves.
Let’s go back to the article by Javier Martínez (“New Errors, please”). According to the author, errors are committed and repeated for two situations, which I will analyze first from the perspective of the company (later I will do it from the perspective of the consultant) and applied to an ERP implementation project:
The first time the error is made, it is because of a lack of knowledge. If we are going to implement our first ERP, that knowledge we do not have if we can conduct our own investigation of causes of failure. I was the first one I did two years ago, when I started to focus on this solution implementation and I compared it with my previous experience (directing implementation projects from within a company)
The second and successive because you do not remember what happened beforehand. If you have already implemented an ERP in your company and now you are going to migrate to a second ERP, you will not remember most of the mistakes you made, it probably was more than 5 years ago and you did not think it important to capture and / or store the learning process Within the organization
What to do then to remember? And do not repeat mistakes. Taking into account that memory is “a limited resource” and fragile, what Javier Martínez proposes,
In this article I will focus on the 6 mistakes that have been part of my failures and that have generated my lessons learned.
1.-Lack of commitment of the Management.-
Most of the ERP presentations I make to potential clients, are accountants or system managers, leaving the Manager or Owner “very far” from the project from the beginning. What does not usually mean that is the best, why ?
Because the company manager is the one who knows (or should) three very important aspects, in the early stages of the ERP lifecycle, adoption and selection, and later in implementation:
The Vision of the company.- Where the company wants to go, which in most SMEs is little shared (almost “ownership” of the board and / or manager)
The needs and problems of the different areas (purchases, sales, warehouse, production, treasury, accounting, rrhh, etc.) of the company and its repercussion in the rest
It has a “panoramic” and integrated perspective of all the processes of the company
For all of the above I consider it a mistake that either the Manager or a high position of the company (with knowledge, if this is greater) is not involved in the implementation project of an ERP from the beginning. In addition, every ERP project is a strategic project and as such, it must have the involvement of the Management (If the Manager is not involved, what are we going to ask the other people in the organization!).
The reasons that the Managers adduce to maintain that distance are “the lack of time” on the one hand and the ignorance in IT, on the other. Of the lack of time, of focusing on the short term, and of how managers spend most of their time with “the fire extinguisher” from one side to the other, turning off “fires”, I will not talk much, For several items. As for ignorance in IT, I will talk about my own experience when I implemented my first ERP, more than 20 years ago.
At that time, the company where he worked was in full growth, in an uncontrolled or disorderly way. In that situation, I proposed to make a big change for the organization (everything was carried in paper, and an electronic typewriter was the most, …… later the fax would arrive): Adopt an ERP as a solution to control the Processes, and to have information to make decisions. Thus, I can be considered the promoter of change. The company did not have a System Manager, the Manager had no knowledge of ERP and I had less time (I had done a 15-day MS-DOS course, that was all my baggage) and as a manager’s right hand, . The first thing I did, when I received the server (an AS-400) was to call to ask how it was turned on. The accountant, in the whole process does not stop saying: that is impossible !, the company is not ready !, we are not going to make it !, phrases that did nothing but “encourage” the rest. One of my lessons learned, after implementation (which took longer than expected, but which today I consider to be exemplary, starting from our initial situation, and more considering that the time dedicated to training was minimal) is That: Ignorance can not become an excuse for not participating in an ERP project by the Management, nor, not to promote and encourage any major change within an organization. Of course, ignorance generates fear, which I consider a natural part of the process of change.
Never be so scared in a project, as in that, the first few months were very hard. I remember that after the first consulting sessions, I ended up having a coffee in a coffee shop (close to work) and lowering my head so nobody would see me cry like a child (frustration), because I understood practically nothing, and many times I went through the head words of “encouragement” of my partner the accountant. But,
“In the midst of the harsh winter I discovered at last that inside me there is an invincible being.”
Albert Camus
2.- The lack of an Initial Analysis of the company (or starting point)
It is often a fairly common mistake to begin implementing an ERP without having done a good initial analysis of the company before. Consulting companies are usually more concerned with selling our product than when analyzing customer needs.
This initial analysis should contemplate at least the following points:
1.- Processes and procedures.- Establishing the key business processes, because they will have to cover the ERP that we select. My suggestion is that at least these key processes are in the standard of the selected solution
2.- The organizational structure (Organizational Chart) .- How are distributed tasks and functions, and responsibilities. There will be an impact on this structure, more or less profound with the implementation
3.- People: Organizational climate and resistance to change of the people of the organization