ERP System Implementation - Change Management, Education and Training

ERP System Change Management - Education and Training There are many areas of great of great importance; Project Scope, Implementation Methodology and Change Management, each very important and critical to the success of the SAP ERP software project. The one area that seems to continually become one of the highest risks is Change Management or should I say the lack of Change management. In its simplest form, Change Management is defined and consists of two areas; Education and Training. If not done well, it always creates the one of the largest problem for a successful SAP ERP software implementation, go-live and sustainment of a production system. Time after time some of the most frequent statements heard during post ERP system implementation audit surveys are; “We didn’t spend enough time training our people”, “Good training materials were not provided”, “I didn’t understand why I was doing all of those transactions”, “I wish we would have invested more time in education and training”. The only answer is to dedicate proper and sufficient time in the education and training of your organization. Education must always precede training. You must educate on the process and procedure and then train the work flow and transactions. Education: From high level; “What is SAP ERP, why are we implementing it and how will it work in your company”? To lower levels; “How does MRP work with the BOMs and Routings”? Training: How do I use the transactions to enter data, display information and get the reports to do my job? We should follow a three level education and training curriculum: Level One – Basic Overviews Level Two – Business Process Procedures Level Three – Detail Transactional Operations and Reporting You cannot assume the users completely understand the SAP best practices and standard business processes. The transactional training will not be effective without the education of these business processes and procedures. When creating the curriculum remember to take the time to do the education prior to the training. Therefore, we must dedicate the time and resources to produce quality education and training materials which may be presented by qualified instructors in order to reduce as much risk as possible.