I work for a small company. They've been trying to adopt a new ERP system for the last 8 years but to no avail. I've been with the company for 2 years myself and was brought into the project a year ago.
After I received my PMP in June, a couple of weeks later the company made me the full-time project manager for the project. The project is about 15% of the way through, and tasks and requirements are scattered all over the place.
There was never a project charter, nor a project management plan, no scope, no WBS, and it's as if schedule wasn't a word in the company's dictionary. They just want it "done".
The only real sponsorship I received was a formal, oral meeting with the business president, the controller, and the IT manager in which I was officially given the verbal project manager position, but with limited details.
It's been a struggle simply trying to pull any deliverables out of the company's leadership. I think it's because most of them don't know what they want nor all of what is needed from the new ERP. I do have great support from the IT manager and he's been very helpful in
The good thing is my past, non-project management experience on the project has helped me learn the system fairly well, and it's given me some idea of the scope and direction, although nothing official.
Seeing how this project wasn't initiated nor planned properly, what would you do, first to last? Is it almost like starting completely over from scratch? Is there some added best practices I should follow for taking over a project after it's been started that would save me some time?
Thank you Saving Changes...
I'm probably jumping the gun, a little, but, is ERP totally new to the company, or are you replacing an existing system and affecting processes?
If the latter, do you have a BA?
If you're not having success getting scope/requirements from your sponsor, work with the end users to identify what they are currently doing - tools and processes. Document the current state. Then start to work on the desired state and conduct a gap analysis - not as simple as it sounds, especially if you are introducing something new. You might have to do some prototyping to determine the desired state.
Once this is done you can take the scope back to your sponsor for approval.
I may be oversimplifying a little. After more people respond with additional detail and suggestions, you can email me with questions if you want to discuss this more. Saving Changes...
Deepa KalangiManager, Program Management, Author, Trainer| CVS HealthCharlotte, NC, United States
Hi Michael
This is not anything new with some orgs. However, with just 15% done, you can review the gaps pretty quickly as a first step and identify the requirements/scope with the help of a BA and a technical person. Someone should have had the ERP experience from technical side(a person that is developing the app or a tech lead or an architect). Document the scope, get formal sign off - without which your project has high chances of failure. But you can maximize the time by producing one document for the scope phase instead of a 4/5 that generally follows the process. Later you can make a project plan or refine the one you have realistically allowing time for learning on the ERP systems. Hope this helps. Saving Changes...
If there is no project charter, PM plan nor scope, what makes it a project? Is there a business case documented somewhere? The "business president" sounds like the sponsor, so I would do some basic housekeeping first (ie. getting some authoritative document signed by the sponsor) before moving too much further into the project. PM's shouldn't be the fall guy, but if you accepted a project without a charter, sponsor, PM plan, scope etc, you may be setting yourself up to be one if the project fails. Saving Changes...
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