In my last blog post, I mentioned that to ignore project governance is a very quick way to make your project manager (PM) curl up in a corner and cry – and that is especially important during an ERP implementation.
Although that might be very amusing for a minute or two, we’ll assume that you really are a good person at heart. I’m sure that you want to show your PM how much you appreciate him or her this holiday season and also make sure your organization achieves ERP success. I’ll let you in on a little secret – all you have to do is read one document and then ask them a few questions about it. It’s something you can do for free!
So what should you read? I’d like to suggest your ERP project charter. Your PM probably invested a lot of time into developing it and it will thrill them to no end if you respond and react to all the hard work that went into it. The ERP project charter takes into account information collected and developed during the executive-level strategy sessions and contains the following:
- A validated ERP project vision
- A validated list of objectives that support the vision
- A list of the expected business benefits that the ERP implementation will bring about
- A clear depiction of what constitutes success for the ERP project
- A high-level scoping statement, timeline and budget
- A high-level list of project variables
- A high-level list of assumptions and anticipated risks
- A roles and responsibilities matrix
- A list of standing project meeting schedules, agendas, and reports
- Governance procedures that address how changes to budget, scope and time are to be treated
A great project manager will take the project charter very seriously. Their deepest desire is to have the ERP project team take it seriously too. You can make their holiday great by reading and understanding the project charter. While I can’t guarantee that it will lead to peace on earth, it will certainly generate a lot of goodwill and warm their cold, little PM heart.
Written by Bobby Green, Senior ERP Consultant at Panorama Consulting Solutions.
