Implementing the ERP system is an emotional event– you are bringing in a new working methods to persons who are used to work in certain way and that arouse emotions. People are likely to alienate themselves from the project thinking “apparently what I am doing today is not good enough so you are bringing a new system in order to control me better – well that is just great, real sense of big brother around here, what have become of us”? I really encountered such a reaction once. This is no fiction but every day issue in the world of ERP implementation projects.
Your implementation approach should be carefully planned with the emphasis on key users and their management. The principle is to involve people that will actually use the system daily and have deep acquaintance with the processes.
Your strategy is to connect practitioners and users together in order to influence the development of the project i.e. connecting different assets together to optimize and improve what already exists.
Therefore try to identify the relevant parties and include them in the integration of the system in order to keep a positive approach to the project. Key parties are the ones who will use the system, will feed data to the system and will extract information out of it.
Do not just make decisions for them; Involve them in the decision making process. In that way you arouse their commitment to the ERP project. Do not forget – these organizational individuals are the key to the success of the project.
Another aspect of this approach is the solving of misunderstandings – they should be solved internally in the team and as soon as possible. Such misunderstandings tend to leak out to other workers and may cause antagonism.
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