Seven Pitfalls of System Implementations

1. Lack of Planning

System implementations often start without taking time to bring relevant stakeholders to the table, define the scope and outcomes of the program and establish a realistic project roadmap. Teams fail to benchmark their program against similar projects and underestimate the level of effort, specialized skills required, dependencies, and key risks for the course of the program.

2. Underestimating the Impact of Change

Implementations bring a lot of change, impacting both operational processes and the individuals responsible for executing the change. In lean organizations, teams particularly may grapple with allocating sufficient time and attention to these initiatives. Failure to appreciate the extent of the change, and reducing Change Management to mere communications and training, can lead to budget overruns, operational disruptions, and weak system adoption.

3. Limited Sponsorship and Alignment at the Top

Sponsors are required to hold the implementation team accountable through the implementation, ensure they have the necessary resources, and remove roadblocks. Without leadership alignment and sponsorship at the top – and an effective governance structure through the change – the implementation will encounter significant resistance, often miss the mark on business value, and is much more likely to fail.

4. Inadequate Process Deseign

Weak process design often leads to sub-optimal operational results, unhappy customers, and frustrated users. When end users are not brought into the design of the processes and when alignment is not reached across business units, the implementation will not deliver the full value to the business. Additionally, process mapping for implementations is often the mere automation of existing ways of working without uncovering opportunities to bring greater value and satisfaction to the business and its stakeholders.

5. Ineffective Project Management

Inexperienced project managers often fall into the role of administrators rather than leaders, focusing on deadlines and status updates instead of guiding the project. They overlook their key responsibilities to align team members, hold individuals accountable to their commitments, proactively raise risks and resolve issues to maintain project commitments. This administrative approach can lead to delays and missed go-live dates.

6. Lack of Effective Communication

Communications for system changes often revert to broadcasting top-down information or updates. These messages end up as just another email in the inbox and do nothing to reduce resistance to the change, or to create buy-in and ownership into the program. Communication without effective conversations compromises the success of these critical investments.

7. Insufficient End User Training and Support

Training is often delivered in a tool-centric format, missing key aspects of roles, responsibilities and process changes that are instrumental to run the business. End users commonly find themselves unprepared and unsure on day one, resulting in crippling business productivity losses in the first weeks, months,  and even quarters, on the new system.