I would value your perspectives on the following transformation scenario:
As the Program /Change Manager, you lead the people and organizational aspects of a global ERP deployment. The program is delayed and over budget. Although a formal governance structure exists, it is ineffective. Decision-making is slow, accountability is unclear, and escalation lacks discipline.
The organization is willing to embrace change, but initial momentum has faded. Engagement varies by region. One region benefits from strong executive sponsorship and clear domain ownership, resulting in steady progress. Another region lacks clear accountability and struggles to execute consistently.
You are expected to restructure and stabilize the program within a short timeframe and a limited budget. What steps would you take?
Thank you,
Maria
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Alexandra EganDecision & Delivery Governance| Domino Effect Consulting and FacilitatingMount Martha, Vic, Australia
Hi Maria,From what you’ve described, this doesn’t read as a delivery capability issue. It reads as a decision discipline issue. When a global ERP program is delayed and over budget despite a formal governance structure, the first question I ask is, Is governance actually operating, or simply documented? Under time and budget pressure, I’d focus on stabilising three things quickly. 1. Clarify decision ownership. Slow decision-making and unclear accountability usually mean decision rights aren’t explicit. Every critical domain needs a single accountable owner not a shared committee. If more than one person “owns” it, no one does. I would identify:
What decisions are repeatedly escalated
Where approvals are stalling
Which issues are circulating without resolution
Then reset ownership with clear thresholds and turnaround expectations. 2. Study the area that’s performing well. You already have a working model inside the program. Strong executive sponsorship and clear domain ownership are producing steady progress. Rather than reinventing structure, I’d examine:
How often the sponsor is actively engaged
How local accountability is reinforced
What decisions stay local versus escalate
Then replicate those behaviours and decision boundaries across other areas. Momentum is rarely about enthusiasm. It’s about clarity. We know that right? 3. Tighten escalation pathways. Escalation lacking discipline usually means:
No defined trigger points
No time expectation for response
Or too many forums reviewing the same issue
I would define:
What must be resolved locally
What escalates automatically
Who makes the final call at each level
And by when
If escalation doesn’t lead to a decision within an agreed timeframe, it’s just circulation. 4. Rebaseline realistically. When programs drift, optimism tends to linger longer than it should. I’d stabilise scope, pause non-critical changes, and re-align the program against what is realistically achievable within the remaining budget and timeframe. Short-term credibility matters more than aspirational plans. 5. Make decision velocity visible. Engagement often drops when people can’t see movement. Tracking decision cycle time and aged issues can quickly shift behaviour. When people see decisions being made consistently, energy returns.
In my experience, global transformations don’t stall because people resist change. They stall when decision authority is blurred and sponsors aren’t actively reinforcing accountability. Restore clarity. Reinforce ownership. Tighten escalation. Stability usually follows.
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1 reply by Maria Hrabikova
Feb 18, 2026 9:39 AM
Maria Hrabikova
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Hi Alexandra, Thank you for generously sharing your expertise and experience with the community. You articulated the reasons transformations fail with real clarity. Your perspective gave me a lot to reflect on and challenged me to think more deeply about what truly drives success, or failure, in this program.
I would make it clear who is responsible, make quick decisions, and focus on the most important tasks first. Small wins, weekly updates, and fast problem-solving can get the ERP program back on track. Saving Changes...
Luis BrancoCEO| Business Insight, Consultores de Gestão, LdªCarcavelos, Lisboa, Portugal
Maria,
Thank you for framing the situation with such clarity. What you describe is not primarily a technical ERP failure. It is a breakdown in governance and decision architecture under constraint.
If a formal structure exists but decisions are slow and accountability unclear, the issue is not process volume but decision sovereignty. I would act on five priorities.
First, restore decision clarity and cadence. Explicitly define decision rights, separate reversible from irreversible decisions, and institute a time-bound governance forum with transparent logs. Speed follows authority.
Second, make accountability structural, not cultural. The regional contrast is diagnostic. Where executive sponsorship and domain ownership are explicit, performance stabilizes. Replicate that architecture enterprise-wide with named outcome owners and disciplined escalation rules.
Third, reset scope through value triage. Under time and budget pressure, protect the minimal viable transformation that safeguards strategic value. Defer non-critical complexity. Stabilization requires focus, not comprehensiveness.
Fourth, rebuild momentum through a small set of visible 60 to 90 day deliverables that signal regained control and execution discipline.
Fifth, protect organizational energy. Reduce parallel noise, align leaders visibly, and clarify expectations. Engagement increases when coherence increases.
In constrained global transformations, recovery does not start with working harder. It starts with redesigning governance so that value-based decisions can move at the speed of accountability.
...
1 reply by Maria Hrabikova
Feb 18, 2026 9:46 AM
Maria Hrabikova
...
Thank you, Luis.
I like your approach to delivering clear, visible results within 60 to 90 days. This signals that the program is under control, builds momentum, and eliminates the need for further structural debate or layers.
Hi Maria,From what you’ve described, this doesn’t read as a delivery capability issue. It reads as a decision discipline issue. When a global ERP program is delayed and over budget despite a formal governance structure, the first question I ask is, Is governance actually operating, or simply documented? Under time and budget pressure, I’d focus on stabilising three things quickly. 1. Clarify decision ownership. Slow decision-making and unclear accountability usually mean decision rights aren’t explicit. Every critical domain needs a single accountable owner not a shared committee. If more than one person “owns” it, no one does. I would identify:
What decisions are repeatedly escalated
Where approvals are stalling
Which issues are circulating without resolution
Then reset ownership with clear thresholds and turnaround expectations. 2. Study the area that’s performing well. You already have a working model inside the program. Strong executive sponsorship and clear domain ownership are producing steady progress. Rather than reinventing structure, I’d examine:
How often the sponsor is actively engaged
How local accountability is reinforced
What decisions stay local versus escalate
Then replicate those behaviours and decision boundaries across other areas. Momentum is rarely about enthusiasm. It’s about clarity. We know that right? 3. Tighten escalation pathways. Escalation lacking discipline usually means:
No defined trigger points
No time expectation for response
Or too many forums reviewing the same issue
I would define:
What must be resolved locally
What escalates automatically
Who makes the final call at each level
And by when
If escalation doesn’t lead to a decision within an agreed timeframe, it’s just circulation. 4. Rebaseline realistically. When programs drift, optimism tends to linger longer than it should. I’d stabilise scope, pause non-critical changes, and re-align the program against what is realistically achievable within the remaining budget and timeframe. Short-term credibility matters more than aspirational plans. 5. Make decision velocity visible. Engagement often drops when people can’t see movement. Tracking decision cycle time and aged issues can quickly shift behaviour. When people see decisions being made consistently, energy returns.
In my experience, global transformations don’t stall because people resist change. They stall when decision authority is blurred and sponsors aren’t actively reinforcing accountability. Restore clarity. Reinforce ownership. Tighten escalation. Stability usually follows.
Hi Alexandra, Thank you for generously sharing your expertise and experience with the community. You articulated the reasons transformations fail with real clarity. Your perspective gave me a lot to reflect on and challenged me to think more deeply about what truly drives success, or failure, in this program.
Thank you for framing the situation with such clarity. What you describe is not primarily a technical ERP failure. It is a breakdown in governance and decision architecture under constraint.
If a formal structure exists but decisions are slow and accountability unclear, the issue is not process volume but decision sovereignty. I would act on five priorities.
First, restore decision clarity and cadence. Explicitly define decision rights, separate reversible from irreversible decisions, and institute a time-bound governance forum with transparent logs. Speed follows authority.
Second, make accountability structural, not cultural. The regional contrast is diagnostic. Where executive sponsorship and domain ownership are explicit, performance stabilizes. Replicate that architecture enterprise-wide with named outcome owners and disciplined escalation rules.
Third, reset scope through value triage. Under time and budget pressure, protect the minimal viable transformation that safeguards strategic value. Defer non-critical complexity. Stabilization requires focus, not comprehensiveness.
Fourth, rebuild momentum through a small set of visible 60 to 90 day deliverables that signal regained control and execution discipline.
Fifth, protect organizational energy. Reduce parallel noise, align leaders visibly, and clarify expectations. Engagement increases when coherence increases.
In constrained global transformations, recovery does not start with working harder. It starts with redesigning governance so that value-based decisions can move at the speed of accountability.
Thank you, Luis.
I like your approach to delivering clear, visible results within 60 to 90 days. This signals that the program is under control, builds momentum, and eliminates the need for further structural debate or layers.
Program Manager| HARPER SRLSanto Domingo / Distrito Nacional, Dominican Republic
Reset governance fast, clarify decision rights, enforce escalation discipline, and re-baseline scope around critical value. Replicate the successful region’s structure and focus on a short recovery roadmap that restores momentum and accountability. Saving Changes...
Sergio Luis ConteHelping to create solutions for everyone| Worldwide based OrganizationsBuenos Aires, Argentina
I was in this type of environments from years mainly when I worked in companies that sells ERP. To write about something useful it is needed to have more information about how the initiatve was created in the begining. Key thing do not fail is to understand that the company is going to from an initial state to a desire state by creating a solution. Solution is the word to use along the initiative, not project. To put this in terms of the PMI (and what I used along the years) there are two key roles here: the business analyst and the project manager. Business analyst must facilitate the solution creation from start, from the genesis, to finish and must continue working in monitoring the results. Project manager helps the business analyst in all related to project definition and execution but project it is just a component of the solution. The solution is about to put strategy into action. So, which are the functions/process included into the ERP that will help on that? Move forward in incremental way of implementation taking into account that everything is about process, tools (the ERP and others) and people (all type of users that will use the ERP). It seems a lack of stakehloders engagement is present. The business analyst (or the similar role) must start demonstrating that everybody will be more rich with the solution than without it, where rich does not mean more money only. It seems that activity was not done. About budged, financial people must help you on that.
Alexandra makes a strong point — this reads less like a capability gap and more like decision discipline under constraint.
I would add one additional lens: sequencing and energy management.
In delayed global ERP programs, stabilization rarely comes from fixing everything at once. It comes from deciding what must become stable first.
Under short timeframes and limited budget, I would focus on three shifts:
1. Move from regional variance to a reference model.
You already have a working micro-system in the region with strong sponsorship and domain ownership. Instead of designing a new structure, elevate that region as the temporary operating template. Standardize cadence, decision thresholds, and escalation mechanics based on what is demonstrably working.
2. Shift from activity recovery to value containment.
Over-budget programs often try to “make up lost time” by accelerating delivery. That usually increases volatility. I would identify the minimum viable transformation that protects regulatory, financial, and operational integrity — and explicitly defer non-critical enhancements. Stabilization is about reducing moving parts.
3. Reduce parallel governance noise.
When momentum fades, organizations often add more forums. That slows decisions further. I would collapse redundant review layers, enforce single-owner decision rights, and make decision cycle time visible across regions. Transparency often restores discipline faster than policy.
The real constraint in programs like this isn’t only budget — it’s organizational energy. When accountability is clear and decision velocity increases, engagement tends to recover naturally.
Stabilization under constraint is less about restructuring charts and more about restoring coherence. Saving Changes...
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