Week 8 reflective post

To plan or not to plan? I think that any effort that involves more than 1 hr and more than 1 individual should be planned to lesser or higher degree. All IT projects fall into that category, so all IT projects should be planned. Most challenging planning and execution projects are the ones that take long time to complete and involve geographically and culturally diverse teams. This is where project plan and project manager play crucial roles. I think that it would be utopian to think that plans would complete by themselves and just by telling people what the goal is that the goal will be reached.

Reaching the goal is far more difficult than that. It is easy for the resources (people) to get sidetracked and become “swallowed” by burning operational issues and problems which at that time appear to be more pressing than some project which is supposed to be completed 10 months down the road. Commitment to planning has to start on the executive level and executives and managers need to receive regular status reports to make sure that the project is on the track and to remove any obstacles in case there are problems.

Week 5 reflective post

To ERP or not to ERP now is the question. Many companies are struggling to answer this question. ERP definitively has many strengths and advantages, but I think that the complexity of the installation and moving of all the processes to ERP is something that scares even the veterans in the IT field. Depending on the size of the company where ERP is being implemented and the complexity of installation, the process of converting to ERP could take years and cost millions or tens of millions of dollars. This is why about 50% of ERP installation fails on first attempt.
On the other hand, companies that do succeed in implementing ERP can reap its benefits. Savings are becoming visible due to increased efficiency and productivity. All of a sudden things that used to take days or months, now take hours. Work seems to be flowing much smoother. If that is not the case, then something is wrong with the ERP implementation. Hopefully with all savings in time and increased efficiencies, the company can start getting some return on their ERP investment.
ERP is not something that should be taken lightly, but it requires careful planning and integration to ensure its success.