Success Factors

The Chaos report version 1995 listed the project success factors based on respondents experiences, those 365 respondents gave user involvement the highest percentage while executive management second while hard-working and focused staff were given the least percentage. Based on my experience I would give executive management support the highest percentage and pick it as the most critical success factor for my ERP development project.

The project I am working on is an in-house ERP development project; the objective of this project is to produce an ERP application that can be used by my organization and later on customize it based on potential clients needs to make it ready for the market. Development of ERP system requires collaboration and commitment from all business divisions, without such commitment the project would fail. Usually commitment from business users is not easy to get, that because they have other priorities, unless business division management is fully committed to the project. Such commitment will be reflected to business users and add more stability to project schedule. In general, project success heavily depends on strong leadership, and commitment from top management. For example my current employer have implemented a system which at the beginning was fully supported by the management, by time management lost interest in this system due to high maintenance cost. Because of that, management has forced a direction to decommission this system and replace it another system that has less maintenance cost, although it might seem that the cost is the main driving factor for such decision, but even costly systems can survive with management support.

Organizational changes caused by projects is another important reason makes me believe that executive management support is the most important success factor, sometimes certain projects require major structural and organizational changes to insure project success, or because the project itself explores a new technology that might lead to staff replacement, and such project would see the sun unless it is supported and blessed by executive management (O’Brochta, 2008). In addition that lots of processes and procedures require management support, especially if they are new to the organization, “follow a documented project plan and ensure that projects are based on documented requirements” (O’Brochta, 2008).

Executive management support will ease project manager job, it will help in getting more resources when needed, put more pressure on certain departments to insure project schedule met, and adds more control over the project by the project manager.

Reference:

Elisabeth J Umble, Ronald R Haft, M.Michael Umble, Enterprise resource planning: Implementation procedures and critical success factors, European Journal of Operational Research, Volume 146, Issue 2, 16 April 2003, Pages 241-257, ISSN 0377-2217, 10.1016/S0377-2217(02)00547-7. http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0377221702005477

(Accessed 21 January 2012)

O’Brochta, M., (2008), ‘Executive Actions For Project Success’, Published in PM World Today – December 2008 (Vol X, Issue XII), [Online], Available from:

http://www.pmforum.org/library/papers/2008/PDFs/OBrochta-12-08.pdf

(Accessed 21 January 2012)