A recent academic paper–Chan and Lui, “Rescuing Troubled Software Projects by Team Transformation…”–discussed the components of ERP failure. The paper presented a handy checklist for what to do to help ensure a successful ERP project. Here it is, in no particular order of importance:

• Top management support.
• Realistic project objective.
• Right ERP strategy.
• Suitable ERP software and hardware.
• Stable requirements or business processes during implementation.
• Alignment with specific requirements.
• Relatively rapid implementations.
• Remaining within budget and scheduling constraints.
• Good technical support from the vendor.
• Good project management.
• No task conflicts among team members.
• Lack of culture clash.
• Non-bureaucratic project organization.
• Correct estimation of staff learning curve.
• Positive user characteristics.
• User involvement.
• Honest information policy (no circulation of unfounded rumors).
• Timely data migration.
• Adequate technical know-how.
• Non-problematic technology base.

At a very high level, this serves as a checklist of ways to avoid ERP failure, which has become a hot topic again, thanks to the SAP-Waste Management imbroglio.

Demir Barlas, Site Editor