
Four Change Management Priorities for Your Big ERP Implementation
Managing a huge IT implementation without the big organizational change management team or budget to match? With hundreds of ERP implementations to our credit, we know how to plan for blockbuster results even where change management resourcing and budget are closer to indie-level.
First, a quick recap on what we mean by change management. Successful change depends upon adoption from your employees. Change management is the proactive, planned approach to prepare the organization to adopt the changes and deliver on the promise of the new ERP system.
Here’s how we prioritize our change management efforts if there’s limited time, team or budget.
Target your Critical End Users
End Users are the employees who will need to directly use the ERP system as part of their day-to-day tasks or complete tasks differently, such as accessing new reports and data.
Review your End User groups and prioritize those most critical for business success. It’s not always the largest group of End Users. The most important to engage may be the smaller group who needs to complete pivotal tasks or the must-have team anticipated to be the most resistant. For example, one of the most overlooked and critical End User groups are Warehouse employees. Imagine the disruption to distribution if Warehouse employees are not able to ship out products on day 1 because they don’t understand how to use the new system. Even though this employee group may be lower skilled and paid than the rest of your population, they may be the number one priority group for your change management action plan.
A change impact assessment, which analyzes the gap between how tasks are completed today and how they’ll be completed in the new system, can help you pinpoint who your priority End Users are.
Invest in Training
Your employees are aware of the new ERP system and believe in the benefits. That’s a great start but if they don’t know how to use the system, unfortunately your implementation will be a flop. Sometimes leaders are surprised by the level of training that’s required to ready End Users for a new ERP system. Effective training not only prepares End Users to confidently use the new system, it also dramatically reduces your business risk. Here’s a checklist to make the most of your training investment:
Is the training customized to your ERP implementation? Off-the-shelf training can be a good start. However, since every system is customized based on business needs, the training needs to be tailored too. Otherwise, your End Users may get stuck trying to find a button or follow a process that doesn’t exist on your ERP system.
Is the time allocated for training realistic? Squeezing too much content into a session can confuse or overwhelm participants.
Is your training targeting the right participants and tailored to the role? Include only the participants who need the training to complete the task in the new system. For example, there’s no need for the full Finance team to be trained to use the new accounts payable process. You also need to focus on the hands-on-keyboard End Users. Training their Supervisors and expecting them to share with their team members doesn’t work.
Does the training include hands-on practice and exercises? Just as a forklift driver can’t learn how to drive from a video, End Users won’t be able to complete tasks in the the new system after a simple demo. Effective training includes opportunities for End Users to practice completing their tasks.
Empower People Leaders to Support their Teams
Get the biggest communication bang for your budget by targeting leaders and people managers with ongoing dialogue, messaging and easy-to-use tools, such as FAQs and meetings-in-a-box. Often employees first turn to their immediate manager for answers, especially if there is any impact to their day-to-day role and responsibilities. Spotlight people leader engagement and you’ll help them navigate their own change curve in addition to preparing to manage and support their teams.
Be Upfront About Business Disruptions
Ask an Executive and one of their biggest concerns with ERP implementations are potential disruptions to the business. ERP implementations are complex and it’s a fact that there will be bumps and interruptions along the way. The most important thing we can do from a change perspective is to be upfront about any disruptive impacts and manage expectations. Customers –and employees—are much more understanding of delays and outages when they’ve been informed in advance.
Looking for an experienced change management team to help your ERP implementation be a blockbuster? Connect with us.