ERP implementation document creation

Outside the window, the cold winter is giving off the warm sunshine, and the air is slightly drunk. However, a cold wind blew over and gave me a chill. I recently took over a half-implemented ERP project. when I took over the project, I had only a few simple documents with a few phrases, no detailed implementation plan, and no detailed implementation records. This project made me deeply feel the pain of no implementation document. Everything had to be re-explored by myself. The customer was impatient and complained that there was no good communication attitude and look in our implementation consultant, here is my experience on the implementation document.

What is an implementation document?

When I received the "two-page" implementation document from my former implementation colleague, I couldn't believe that he asked, "no? Only these? ", My colleague nodded awkwardly, and then he said, Let me vomit blood." The Implementation Plan and record documents are clearly recorded in my mind. "This is completely a misunderstanding of the implementation documentation and is also a common problem for many ERP implementation consultants.

A project implementation document is a process used to record, describe, and display a series of information in the implementation process. It describes, defines, defines, and reports the project activity process or results in writing or in diagrams. For example, phased implementation plan documents, Standard Business Process documents, standard coding and data documents, standard parameter settings documents, and functional operation guide documents. These documents will be gradually enriched and improved along with the various phases of ERP implementation, as well as the entire implementation process and results.

As an implementation consultant, various standards implementation documents should be submitted to enterprises during implementation to ensure the quality of ERP implementation projects. That is to say, the work between the implementation consultant and the enterprise is closely related to the submission of documents. It describes every detail of the project implementation process. Therefore, to some extent, the core of project management is document management.

(1) project documents help improve the level of project management. In terms of content, project documents can be roughly divided into two categories: Results documents and process documents. As an integral part of project deliverables, the results document is naturally important. Process documents mainly record various information in the project management process and provide decision-making basis for implementers to ensure the smooth implementation of the project. On the other hand, process documents are the most valuable assets in the implementation process, by summarizing and analyzing the process documents, you can understand the successful experiences and lessons of the implementation project, so that subsequent project operations can be more targeted.

(2) project documents are the embodiment of project achievements. The staged results of the project are presented in the form of documents. Therefore, it is reasonable to say that "the operation of the project is driven by documents to a certain extent. From the perspective of documents, the implementation process of ERP projects is a process of document preparation and implementation. During the implementation of the ERP project, documents should be prepared for the prior planning, in-process implementation records, and post-event analysis results of each task, including the resources related to the project and their usage. Therefore, the implementation document is part of the ERP project. Project implementation without formal documents is not a standard ERP implementation. The compilation and management of documents have a prominent position and considerable workload in ERP implementation. They provide high-quality compilation, change, correction, management and maintenance documents, it has important practical significance for improving the quality of project implementation and customer satisfaction.

What role does the document play in project implementation?

I learned from my colleague in charge of the project that there are many misunderstandings about the role of the implementation document. I think there are many implementation tasks, and many customers complain about the problems to be handled, there is no time to write documents. With this idea, I began to ignore the document. How can I ignore it? I think that writing documents is too tired. If you can use your mouth to write documents, you do not need to write them manually. If you can simply write documents, you will never write them in detail. When you need to report, okay, I'll tell you, it's much easier to say something. In fact, the implementation document is a tool ".

(1) improve the visibility of the project implementation process. The standard, standard, and complete documents will record the incidents occurred during the project implementation process in detail, so that the implementers can grasp the project implementation progress, implementation quality, and allocation of various resources. At the same time, the document helps the implementer and enterprise personnel clearly understand their respective responsibilities and information exchange, and jointly grasp the pace of the implementation process.

(2) improve the project implementation efficiency. Project members can spend a certain amount of time preparing and organizing software documents, so that the implementers can carefully think about and straighten out the work at each stage and identify existing problems, so as to reduce errors, improve the quality of project implementation. By checking documents, document errors and inconsistencies are discovered in the early stages of project implementation, which can be corrected in a timely manner, this can reduce the occurrence of major problems caused by in-depth projects and increase the cost of correcting mistakes.

(3) facilitates communication and cooperation between project members. The clear and complete documentation helps enterprises understand the various indicators in the implementation process and build a bridge between the enterprise and the implementation consultant. A document is a silent language that records information about software configuration, operation, maintenance, and training during project implementation, it facilitates communication and cooperation between management personnel, implementers and operation users.

(4) The operation guide document helps end users standardize operations and enhance the training effect. The operator's understanding of the ERP system is more from instructions, which can improve the operator's correct and quick operation of the software.

(5) monitoring functions conducive to project implementation. ERP implementation is a highly risky project and requires rigorous project monitoring. Periodic inspection, review, and documented results are one of the important methods. The results of standardized implementation documents are not only helpful for monitoring the project progress, but also for project acceptance.

The implementation document is the embodiment of the professional competence of the manufacturer

Whether ERP vendors can have a strong vitality in the market can be evaluated from two aspects: ① whether ERP software can be provided to customers. ② Is it possible to provide effective consulting implementation services. For the latter, submission of implementation documents is an important factor.

(1) One of the professional implementation service capabilities is the compilation of documents. Professional implementation documents involve the ability and style of an implementation consultant. They are one of the industry experience Indicators of the implementation consultant and an important indicator of the maturity of the implementation capabilities of ERP vendors. Therefore, the professional level of the implementation documents has become an important indicator to reflect the overall competitiveness of ERP vendors.

(2) documented feedback on standardized implementation issues. The implementation process will certainly encounter various problems, such as software problems or implementation settings, which need to be reported to the software vendor for solutions, feedback and solutions to such problems are also part of the professional competence of the vendors.

There are two main situations for this type of problem: ① the important feedback is delayed and cannot be solved and replied. when the document is well developed, you can open the document at a glance when a problem occurs, responsibility will not be shirked. I remember Carnegie Mellon said that people do not or are willing to admit that they are wrong. Even if they admit it, they do not think so in 100%. During implementation, we should avoid nourishing such an environment for bacterial growth. ② Some problems frequently occur in different departments and stages. Simple and trivial repeated problems will make the implementation consultant exhausted and inefficient. At this time, a documented FAQ set is significant for project implementation.

Implementation documentation is the best way to improve personnel experience

Being good at learning is essential for any career. For ERP implementation, this requirement is even higher, and project documents are of great benefit to the Quality Improvement of project implementers. At present, many enterprises have a common problem when implementing ERP projects: due to the limited personnel quality, many decisions are made only by oral narration, and there is a lack of adequate text records, as a result, project problems tend to be at a loss. In essence, the project document emphasizes a standardized management that requires the project personnel to communicate and express in writing to guide the project operation.

Implementers should not write documents only for writing implementation documents. Good documents are the basis for ideological communication and communication, and also the basis for organizing and Clarifying Ideas. Without learning and growing from experience, there will never be a qualitative improvement. An Implementation consultant can grow up only when an implementation task is completed and the application status and user feedback of the implementation are tracked and summarized at any time to find its own shortcomings.

In addition, the importance of documents is also manifested in the importance of project "inheritance". With good documents, when new members of the Project enter, the ERP implementation document can serve as a guide for new members to quickly work, rather than simply asking the original members, saving everyone's time. In addition, after the implementation is complete, the implementation document will become the text carrier for enterprises to implement informatization, providing detailed materials for subsequent personnel training.

 Implementation Document FAQs

Whether the implementation document is professional has become one of the important evaluation indicators of ERP vendors and implementation consultants in terms of implementation competitiveness. However, these shortcomings still exist:

(1) writing documents is not standardized. It is mainly manifested in the project implementation process that documents in each stage are not organized and managed in different levels, and there is a lack of consistency among various documents and materials.

(2) the content of the document is not well described. In the process of writing various documents, although everyone has written according to the prescribed mode, the content is often not perfect. Either the document is extremely simple, which is equivalent to no document. Either the document is in form and has no practical value, or even some implementation documents are completely different from the implementation process.

(3) Documents are not managed in a unified manner. As the system continues to be optimized, upgraded, and new requirements emerge, there are more and more documents and no document database has been created. Documents in different periods are scattered, making it very difficult to query documents.

(4) focus only on the document format, and the practicality is not strong. In the actual implementation process, the compilers do not have time to care about their purposes, nor do they know which departments are using them. More is to complete the tasks within the specified time, in this way, some impractical and repetitive documents not only hinder the enforceability of ERP implementation, but also affect the overall progress of the project. Therefore, document preparation must be practical to reduce tedious text work.

(5) The document security cannot be guaranteed, and the leakage of confidential documents cannot be effectively controlled. Among the numerous project implementation documents, some of them must be key documents and play a very important role. There is no special priority for such documents, and there is no special mark for some key points.

 
How to manage the implementation documents?

 
As mentioned above, the role of implementation documents in project management is unquestionable, but document management is usually the most overlooked in project management. I believe that you should pay attention to the following aspects in document management:

(1) The first step is to establish a document management system. The key points should be embodied in two points: ① The number, name, identification, type, management owner, content and other basic content of the Project Document should be arranged in advance to obtain the project document overview table. ② It is to develop management procedures for various project documents, such as approval, release, revision, identification, confidentiality, storage, transfer, and inspection, provides a good foundation platform for Project Document configuration management.

(2) document version management is very important. Version chaos is a critical consequence of implementing documents. Effective management of documents must implement version control.

(3) Creating access rules for document libraries is an important part of document management. Access rules determine who can access, read, upgrade, and add documents to the document library. At the same time, the document library should also carry out regular inspections to archive or clean up the old files to ensure that the document management meets the requirements of the company and the Project Implementation Group.

(4) document review. In addition to communications, important documents need to be reviewed at all levels. Review is to check whether the project documents are complete and missing, whether the documents comply with the standards and requirements, whether the content description is correct and closely related to the topic, and whether the listed chart information is accurate to ensure the quality of the documents. Both parties should also sign the implementation of the phased outcome review document to confirm that the phased outcome meets the requirements and accept it.

(5) use tools to manage documents. For the implementation of a large ERP project, after investigation, implementation, secondary development and application, there will be a lot of documents throughout the implementation cycle. The document content is constantly changing. Some are continuous, historical, new, and abolished. This may require a unified document management tool to store and manage various implementation documents in different categories and create an implementation document database.

Author: Yuan Shao Source: it168