Project management note (27) Is there an implementation template for the Implementation consultant to think about?

Case scenario:

In the late autumn of October, it was supposed to be a cool and refreshing season. ERP implementation consultant xiaogao just completed an eight-month ERP project, it is also immersed in the aftertaste of successful projects. However, just as cold air is chilling, he entered the cold winter in Mid-Autumn in advance because the company recently asked him to take over an ERP project that was half implemented, this project only contains a few simple documents.

The implementation of this ERP project has completed all the preparations for the preliminary project, but at this point, the original project manager left, leaving a big mess for him to clean up. A big taboo in the implementation of ERP projects is the on-line change, because the progress of the project has been delayed, and the customer is in extreme dissatisfaction, but this is not the most terrible, this project does not have a detailed implementation plan or clear business research report, there is no business solution in the early stage, and more detailed implementation documents such as the project risk register, project meeting minutes, and project requirement list involved in the project implementation process are not provided.

When Mr. Gao received two poor doc documents from the company's former ERP project implementation colleagues, totaling no more than five pages of the implementation documents, Mr. Gao was incredible and asked, "no? Only these? ", My colleague nodded, and then he said," All the content of project implementation is clearly remembered in my mind. I did it myself before, it doesn't matter if you want to document it ". As a result, people leave their minds empty, and the project needs to be re-explored. This not only wastes valuable time to do repetitive work, but also keeps a tight relationship with customers, at the company level, the project also suffers losses.

After taking over the project, xiaogao deeply felt that there was no implementation document, and clearly felt the importance of the project implementation document. The standardization of project implementation starts from the document and starts from oneself. The project implementation work is completed step by step according to the specifications. The necessary documents are completed without any effort. After several years of project training, I grew from high to high. I also grew from an implementation consultant to a project manager. as a project manager, I naturally need to perform project management from the project perspective, the project implementation documents are also mandatory for project management.

However, after several projects, I always felt that the project was abnormal. What should I do? There are a lot of project documents, but the content of the documents, such as the customer's business solutions, seems to be the same for all projects, using the previous project documents or the company's project implementation templates, some project documents haven't even been changed to the customer name. Copy (CTRL + C, CTRL + V) directly and use search-replace to complete a business solution. This solution seems very weighty to the customer, with dozens of hundreds of pages thick, and a considerable amount of binding; what about content, and 108,000 of the customer's business, even none of the above business scenarios have been written into; Ask the customer: "Have you confirmed this solution? Is it consistent with your business ?" The customer directly said, "You cannot understand such thick things, but we cannot understand them. The content in the solution is not related to the content of your subsequent training, we should look at it as a reference material. If we think it is useful, we should not look at it if it is useless ".

The old master is depressed, and the document does not work when there is no document. If there is a document, the customer does not read it, or the document does not work. What should I do?

Case Analysis:

In the past many years, the implementation of ERP projects has basically been a "Workshop-style" implementation. Basically, there is no rule, and the Implementation consultant can do what he wants. All his knowledge is in his head, after the project is completed, apart from the personal experience of consultants, there is nothing left for the company and other colleagues.

However, after several years of theoretical guidance on project management, ERP software vendors have begun to focus on the construction of the project implementation methodology, it also began to emphasize the "key achievements and milestone check" in the project implementation process, and the project implementation document became a "necessity". It also put forward the "one must not be a few project implementation documents, it solves the process of project implementation documents from scratch. Old Gao is currently solving the problem, but he is facing a new problem, that is, the quality of the project implementation document.

After building the project implementation methodology, many enterprises will have an implementation template, which was originally intended to speed up the project implementation efficiency, because you don't have to think about the structure of the document. For Business Solutions, the first step is to talk about the business background, the second step is to draw a business flow chart, and the third step is to describe the process, step 4: resolve the problem of the current process, Step 5: Make a suggested solution (solution 1, 2, and 3 may be available), and Step 6: Compare the solution and make suggestions. A solution is basically ready. However, after the implementation consultant has such a template, he suddenly does not think about it. Why? "People are inert." You have to admit this sentence. Well, because all documents have the same structure, let's look at the content. It seems that most customers have similar business scenarios? Find the business solutions for the three historical projects and refer to copy. A solution can be quickly released and can be used by the customer after being trimmed.

Such a business solution seems reasonable in a specific business scenario and key points. However, from the perspective of the overall business solution, there are disconnections or even contradictions between the business scenarios before and after, or the customer's important business needs are missed, which is not reflected at all; the other is to carefully consider a specific business scenario to find that the current situation of the customer's business is not the same, and the goal the customer wants to achieve is not reliable, as a result, the business solution is regarded as a "decoration", and the customer uses it as a reference material. It does not define the project scope and target implementation method with the customer.

The next thing will make this project very miserable. Because the customer did not confirm the Business Solution in the early stage, or even if the customer confirmed the solution, it was a "decoration". The customer can listen to you when you make the solution, after listening to you, I signed the plan. But when it comes to the launch, the customer will be able to "settle accounts after Autumn". Later, we will see that this process is not consistent with our own business, first, we can see that the function is not provided in the system, and then we can see that the business process settings are perfect, but it cannot be used here because there are other special circumstances. What should I do if the customer needs to use the system when the project arrives? If you want to change the configuration of the software, the customer needs to change the process, or even the software, you will never be able to accept this problem. In that case, we will take a step back and use it, this system has been launched in this way. What is the application effect of this system at the end? Basically, when the implementation consultant withdraws, the system is basically abolished and becomes a real "decoration ".

The above scenario is not an alarmist for the author. There will be many "dead" methods in the failure of the ERP project, but this "dead" method is really unfair to customers. So how should we solve the document quality problems in the ERP project implementation process? This requires an analysis of our project implementation document:

1,What is a project implementation document?It is used to record, describe, display the documents produced during the implementation of the ERP project, or describe, stipulate or report the project activity results. From the above definition, we can see that the ERP project implementation documents can be divided into two categories: Results documents and process documents. As an integral part of the project implementation work delivery product, the results document is a necessary document in the project implementation process. The process documents record all kinds of information in the project implementation process, which is an important basis for project implementers or the company's management to make decisions, and is also a very valuable asset in the implementation process.

2,What is the role of the project implementation document?

A)The document improves the visibility of the implementation process:Implementation members can prepare and sort out the implementation documents for a certain period of time, so that the implementers can carefully think about, rationalize, and identify existing problems in each stage, so as to reduce errors and improve the quality of project implementation.

B)Document can standardize the handling of implementation problems:Problems may inevitably occur during project implementation, but what are the causes? Who is responsible? Who should solve the problem? Has it been effectively solved? All of this relies on good project implementation documents for tracking.

C)Facilitate communication and cooperation between project members:The clear and complete description documents allow team members to understand the various indicators in the implementation process and build a bridge between enterprise leaders and implementation teams. At the same time, when a new member enters the project or a new employee takes over the project, the ERP implementation document can serve as a guide to the new member's quick work, rather than asking the original member to find the answer.

D)Implementation documentation is the best way to improve personnel experience:For ERP implementation consultants, being good at learning and summarizing is the foundation for continuous career progress. Professional implementation documents can reflect the learning and summarization capabilities of an implementation consultant and an important indicator of the management level of an ERP implementation team.

E)Monitoring functions conducive to project implementation: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.

Everyone has realized that the project document is very important in the project implementation process, so the current ERP implementation consultant will write the document many times, however, the implementation consultant used the quickest way to copy the project implementation document during the actual construction. However, during the replication process, the implementation consultant did not master how to copy the document, in fact, the template in the implementation process only provides a document structure. The implementation consultant only needs to follow this structure and focus mainly on thinking about customer issues, it is similar to "Filling blank questions" under a certain document structure, without having to re-organize the documents and write a new document. At the same time, the implementation consultant can refer to the historical project implementation documents, but cannot copy them. Each project has its own particularity and personality. If this feature is not displayed in the corresponding project implementation results, so we don't need to do another project, so there is no so-called project implementation process.

Therefore, with the project implementation template and implementation case document, the implementation consultant does not have to think about how to build the document format. However, the Implementation consultant must be closer to the customer and think about the customer's specific business, and how we solve the problem is the core value of the consultant.

It is only a direction and guidance to inform the Implementation consultant about how to think. As an enterprise, it also needs to ensure that the thinking direction of the Implementation consultant will not deviate from our requirements. Therefore, we need to solve another problem:How should the project implementation documents be managed?To solve this problem, follow these steps:

1,Build a project implementation document system:Lists document templates for reference, project results documents that must be signed by the customer, optional process documents, usage methods of relevant documents, and control of documents during project implementation, obtain a list of project implementation documents. obtain best business practices (implementation cases) through results review based on the project process documents and key results ), the templates and guidelines for project implementation are obtained through best practices, which are a process of abstraction;

 

2,Document managementProgram:Such as whether a review is required, whether approval is required, how to publish, how to revise, how to identify and define the confidentiality level, how to store, how to transmit and consult;

3,Develop document template usage specifications:As mentioned above, document templates are mandatory, which play a huge role in submitting the work efficiency. However, there should be a clear guide on how to use these document templates, instead of ", this should be the role of the template;

4,Build a Project Implementation Document Library:Implement Version Control Based on project documents and build a document library for project implementation. Document reuse cannot be performed due to too many documents and version confusion;

5,Construct a document review and approval mechanism:In the project implementation process, the generation of important documents should not be the results of the implementation consultant's head shot, nor should it be simply the result of copying and pasting, project team members should discuss and compile the project according to the customer's business reality, and submit the project team members to the company director for review. Only after the review is passed can the project be released to the customer. Only through this mechanism can the project team, only in this way can the implementation consultant ensure that the template is not simply copied, but the result obtained after careful consideration. This is the result that truly helps the customer solve the problem, in order to be truly recognized by the customer;

6,Support using IT systems:Documents of one project are well managed, but what about 100 projects? During the implementation of a large ERP project, hundreds of thousands of documents may be generated without IT systems. It is hard to imagine that the above document management system is supported.

Summarize the above content:With the project implementation methodology and corresponding implementation work templates, it does not mean that the implementation consultant can leave it alone. On the contrary, the implementation consultant does not need to think about simple and repetitive work. The implementation consultant needs to think more deeply about the deeper problems-customers' core business issues, the solution to this problem puts forward higher requirements for the Implementation consultant. Of course, it also reflects the value of the implementation consultant.