AST Blog Series: Selecting the Right Team for your Implementation Project

Selection of a skilled team is a critical factor for the success of any implementation project. By selecting quality team members, your organization can mitigate the risk of failure and increase your chances of project success.  Any team member selected should be comfortable in learning the new system, as well as guiding the implementation team towards the success of the project. Any project team should have an equal mix of technical and functional skills, along with proper decision-making authority.

Subject Matter Expert (SME) Selection:  SMEs are critical team members who know the business in the greatest detail and will drive the EPM implementation project to successful completion. Your systems integrator/partner will surely be skilled in the software functionality and capability, but your SMEs will bring their expert knowledge about the way your organization currently runs. They will act as the key translators to convey not only the existing business processes, but also the direction the organization wants to go in the future. In addition to domain knowledge, a SME’s primary objective is to gather process and configuration information from other key users and to help the implementation team configure the business system based on that information; hence, it is the SME who is expected to know the business and all the processes involved so that they can educate the software implementers at each stage of the project lifecycle. Selection of SMEs is a critical process and should be done with great care and caution. SMEs should also be empowered to make project decisions to avoid any stop-gaps in the process.

Implementation Partner Team Selection:  Before the team from your implementation partner is deployed, it is important to ensure that quality team members are selected. Failure to complete due diligence in this regard may lead to project failure, so it is critical that your organization is partnering with the right people with the appropriate roles and skills for your project. Be sure that the team has relevant and adequate experience with EPM software tools, as well as thorough knowledge of your industry. Choose a Project Leaderwith strong management and communication skills who understands the operations and objectives of the business software implementation. The Project Leader is the person responsible for the overall project planning and progress toward agreed-upon goals. The Functional Leader leads the software configuration efforts and decision analysis during the project implementation process. Similar to SMEs, Functional Leaders from the implementation team play a key role in the success of the project. It is highly important to select a leader for your project who not only understands the complexity of the EPM software, but also has in-depth knowledge of your industry, as well as a history of successful implementations for similar business entities. Similar care must be taken in selecting other technical, change management and administration team members.

Executive Management Support:  A critical factor for the success of any project is to have regular support from an Executive Sponsor &Steering Committee, both from your own team, as well as the implementation partner’s team.  Receiving support from business executives from the very beginning of the project is essential to its success as they are the main drivers of all key project decisions. It is important to conduct regular steering committee meetings to keep management actively involved in the project.

Now that you have selected an appropriate and skilled team for your implementation project, next week we will discuss the solution design.