Who should read this
CFO, IT Director or Project Manager within a business or any person that is responsible or a major stakeholder in the ERP Project in the business.
Background
I'm coming at this from the perspective of projects Ireland (and many other countries) where the end of December is a significant holiday season at the end of December.
This means a lot of people move into holiday mode and tend to take a long break.
Also, most companies close over Christmas which may start on the 22nd and run to the first week of January or beyond. It's also a time when people take the opportunity to unwind and get a needed break from work.
All these factors are very disruptive to an ERP GO LIVE. Simply put, people are not 100% focused and ready for a Go Live.
How does that affect your project?
So if your project is going live at end of December/Start of January, it means there's a lot of work to happen over that period. This puts an extra strain on people. So it's not that you can't do it, it's that you need to be prepared and plan accordingly, and prepare for these factors.
So why do companies push to go live in December?
This won't be a surprise to most people, but what we find is there's a lot of companies that have a financial calendar which finishes in December, and they're keen to start a 'clean' switch on a new system at the start of the financial year, to get a clean cutover. The plan is set 6, 12 months before or even longer, so everyone thinks there is lots of time to plan it. The CFO or Senior Finance person is asked to pick their ideal time to Go Live and it seems like an obvious choice.
Why you shouldn't do it?
Holiday Period
I already metnioned this above but worth a 2nd mention; it's a disruptive time so difficult to get people 100% focused on the project
Year End
Do you also have a Year End (Financial year Jan to Dec); that's brings an extra workload on the finance department in particular and others, for example, a year end stock count.
Not Essential to get the consolidated year in the new system
So while this sounds like a good idea, it's really not essential. The reason it's not essential, as you can go live and when I say go live, I mean start on your new ERP system at any point in time In the year and bring on historical transactions retrospectively.
Not enough forward planning
Often we find from our experience, companies set this goal and set this target for for that sole reason of starting with a clean slate and eventually back out because the reality is that they can't people can put the time in there just isn't enough worked on coming up to that December period and therefore it's not achieved. These factor and stress points make it particularly challenging for a new ERP system.
You mean you still want to go live in December? Ok, let's looks at it!
Why is it good time potentially
- It's a quiet time for operations (or sales or logistics)
- The business is working through the Christmas period anyway so business as usual period, but not your busy season
What you need
- Essentials
- Finance team
- Designated key Person from each dept.
- Minimize holidays for the project team
- People need to sign up to work over the holidays. This can be manageable. If you're using your existing team and asking them to stretch a little and add extra hours then it becomes a real challenge, so consideration on time after Go Live shoud be factored in.
- Backfill
- Consider bringing in additional resources but preferable backfill people that are on the project. The people on the project should be involved in the bsuiness. There can be exceptions (look at our article 'Internal v External' resources for more detial on this topic)
Conclusion
So my main message really is to think about this when you're planning your project, think about the end reason, challenge that reason, and see if it's really worth the extra effort. And again, not all software projects have this challenge but ERP projects, in particular, where there's so many interlinked processes across departments and across functional areas in the business, requires a lot of focus across the business for a Go Live. Removing added risk factors like a December/January GO LIVE increases your chances of a successful outcome.