This is a true story. The company name
has been changed.
Background
Acme Corporation selected a new integrated
general ledger and accounts payable package. Then they assigned a project
manager to plan and manage the implementation.
The project manager worked with the
vendor and the Acme employees to plan the work. Once the sponsor approved the plan,
the implementation began.
The situation
One of the responsibilities of the
project manager is identifying, documenting, prioritizing, and tracking issues.
In addition, the project manager has to find out what needs to be done to
resolve each issue and ensure that it is cleared up within an appropriate
period of time.
At Acme, there were a large number of
issues to deal with during the first few months of the general ledger
implementation.
Many issues were typical of any system
implementation. In these cases, the project manager worked with the vendor and
the users to tweak business processes that would facilitate use of the system.
However, several other issues were
directly related to the capabilities of the product. The vendor’s consultant
was thorough about investigating workarounds that would deal with the
functionality issues. However, several issues could not be resolved to the satisfaction of the client.
The general ledger system that Acme had purchased could not support Acme’s
business needs.
In addition, the team had discovered that the accounts payable and
general ledger were not really an integrated package. Instead they had been
designed and written by two different companies, then marketed by the general
ledger software vendor under a single brand name with a standard import/export
interface. This lack of integration was a big concern for the users.
Analysis and recommendation
What did the project manager do? She
reviewed the outstanding functionality issues and assessed them in terms of the
short term and long term impact on the company. The project manager recognized
that some of the issues were so severe that they would restrict the growth
plans of the company. For example, the company had already used up all of the
profit and cost centre codes allowed in the general ledger.
The project manager met with the
project implementation team and recommended cancellation of the project. As
expected, this was a very difficult decision for the team, as they had already
invested considerable effort and money in the project so far. They did not want
it to appear that their project had failed.
Cancellation
The project team did conclude that
cancellation was the appropriate action, and the recommendation was taken to
the project sponsor, who agreed.
The project was cancelled. The Acme legal department, the vendor, and all affected users were notified of the
cancellation.
Epilogue
Many projects that fail manage to
stumble along to the end before being judged a failure. As this tale
illustrated, the evidence of impending failure is usually available earlier in
the project, and the decision can be made at lower cost.
This is an extremely tough decision to
make because the vendor is determined to find a workaround to solve the
problems, and the momentum of the project tends to make the project team want
to continue along the planned path.
The product was so unsuitable to the
company’s needs that the project would have been widely judged a failure
anyway. So, the decision took place sooner rather than later.
Of course, doing a proper definition of
needs and a software selection in the first place could have prevented the
whole debacle.
When the project sponsor initiated a
new project to replace the general ledger and accounts payable systems, the new
project started with a detailed analysis of the company’s business
requirements.
Copyright
2015 Debbie Gallagher
