A little foresight can go a long way to support an ERP implementation. COOs or other C-suite members serving as the project sponsor should be proactive about ensuring the team is planning the right steps for the post-implementation process.
Reaching a new ERP system's go-live milestones is crucial for a successful rollout, but important work remains after go-live. The implementation team might have needed to postpone some issues until after the go-live date, and some specific tasks must wait until after go-live regardless. C-suite leaders should understand that completion of post-implementation tasks can make or break an ERP system's adoption.
Here are the tasks the project team should carry out post-ERP implementation as well as how they can prepare before go-live so they're set up for success.
1. Focus on ERP training
A small selection of employees might begin training before go-live. But the main training period will usually occur right after go-live, when the implementation and training team makes sure all employees and external users acquire the knowledge needed to use the new system. This is also an opportunity for the training team to refine their training material based on early feedback from the training sessions they run.
To make the training easier for employees, project leaders should consider building and regularly adding to an FAQ that compiles questions from employees as employees send them and making sure the FAQ provides clear answers.
2. Finalize process documentation
The ERP implementation likely involved updates like automating manual processes or changing an existing process to fit within the new ERP's functionality.
The ERP configuration team should have kept much of the process documentation up to date during configuration. After the implementation, the team should carry out a final review of the documents and simplify the instructions on how to use the documents, if needed.
3. Prioritize outstanding issues
Often some issues aren't resolved during the final testing phase and before go-live. Project leaders should make sure the tasks that were previously postponed aren't forgotten after the go-live.
COOs should ensure the project manager has scheduled a meeting with key stakeholders shortly after go-live so the project manager can review the outstanding issues and prioritize them for resolution against any new issues reported post go-live.
4. Respond to user questions
ERP system users will inevitably have questions after go-live, no matter how well training is conducted. The ERP project team should make sure users know who to contact for answers.
In addition, if external parties are accessing the ERP system, they might need different contact options than internal users.
5. Schedule project update meetings
Once the ERP system is live, key stakeholders will continue to request updates. For example, they might ask for information on deferred issues, identify new ones, ask for statistics on system usage and request updates on how the project is tracking against KPIs.
The project team must continue providing updates and producing dashboards until everyone agrees the project is closed or the next phase of the project is initiated.
6. Carry out data migration
The implementation project team might not have migrated all the historical data during the project because the data is old and of a lower priority. The organization also might have decided not to include the historical data in the new ERP because it will be stored in a separate system.
If the historical data will be stored in the new ERP, then the project team will need to take care of the data migration following go-live.
7. Clean up data
After go-live, the project team might need to quickly resolve issues with some of the migrated data.
These issues might not have been resolved before because of a tight deadline for the data migration or because decisions made during the data migration process might need to be reversed now. For example, the team might have created duplicate records for the same vendor during the data migration, and the team needs to delete the duplicates.
The team might also find previously unknown errors that they missed during the data migration process. For example, the data conversion scripts might have changed the data in an unexpected way.
8. Carry out a post-implementation review
Shortly after go-live, the project leader should arrange meetings to discuss the project and document what went well and what could be improved in a future release or for the next IT project. Depending on the size of the project team, it may be necessary to schedule multiple meetings to make sure everyone has a chance to submit feedback. Also, having different meetings for different stakeholder groups can keep each meeting focused on topics relevant to attendees. For example, a vendor may have had a different experience than someone in the finance department or a technical resource assigned to the project.
The project leader may want to use multiple mediums to capture feedback, including in-person and remote meetings as well as surveys and informal discussions to gather input.
9. Offboard departing team members
Team members often move on to other projects shortly after the go-live milestone. Before that happens, project leaders should make sure departing team members finish any necessary tasks.
These tasks might include finalizing implementation documents, completing any outstanding expense reports and timesheets and potentially training another team member on their area of responsibility.
10. Complete project closeout
Once the implementation is complete, the team might need to complete some specific tasks to officially close the project.
Tasks include finalizing all the necessary documents, ensuring the software development code is stored properly, finalizing payments and confirming that all tasks that were outstanding at go-live are complete. If the project will continue with a next phase, then these activities should focus on closing the previous phase.
11. Plan for the next phase
The organization will likely need to complete additional work post go-live. That work might include implementing new features, addressing new or previously known defects, or integrating a third-party tool.
The implementation team should initiate a new planning cycle before starting these tasks so the group can scope the work, get approval and build a team. The team should also give key stakeholders an opportunity to provide input into the items that the group will address and the time frame in which they will do so.
12. Monitor AI responses and insights
Post go-live, the project leader should be sure to assign one or more team members the task of actively monitoring the results and insights provided by AI. These people can potentially provide the correct answers when AI tools provide wrong or vague answers. In this way, the AI tool learns for future questions.
Also, it's important that a human validates any AI-generated insights or reports to confirm their accuracy.
While AI has come a long way in the past couple of years, there are still nuances in the English language that AI might not understand. For example, there may be instances where AI interprets negative-sounding words to always mean a negative answer, such as a sentence that contains "not" or "terrible," whereas it interprets words such as "great" and "good" as only positive.
Eric St-Jean is an independent consultant with a particular focus on HR technology, project management and Microsoft Excel training and automation. He writes about numerous business and technology areas.