Success

If your Degree of Fit is just not there, or the balance between it and the budgetary estimate is not favorable, the risk that project will exceed the budget or not meet the requirements is high, but you might still decide to go on. In fact, most consultants often do, choosing to fight the odds.

MSDynamicsWorld.com has just posted an excerpt from my friend Dave’s and my book Implementing Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2009, delivering some content from chapter 4, focusing on the implementation process. The Chapter 4 draws a lot of its content from Sure Step best practices, and the fact that…

“Software projects are no different from other projects”. This statement is being repeated over and over at project management courses and seminars, even endorsed in books. It’s true that software (and ERP implementation, as a subset of software) projects have many traits in common with projects in other disciplines.

“Our highest priority is to satisfy the customer through early and continuous delivery of valuable software.” That’s the very first principle of the Agile Manifesto . The problem with ERP is that the first deliveries are all but early: they typically occur only after about twenty months .

In my previous post I’ve (what, again?) shared some statistics about success and failure rates of software projects in general and ERP projects specifically. It seems that ERP projects fare somewhat worse than generic software projects, which I stated might have a lot to do with how requirements are handled.

Agile has been gaining momentum among software development methodologies for past decade or so. Various researches and surveys consistently show that software developed under an agile approach is generally better than the software developed under waterfall approaches.

Another month is over, and in my recently established tradition, I’m taking a look back at the past month to give you an overview of developments around NavigateIntoSuccess.com . This was both a great month, and a rough month for me.

According to Standish Group , top causes of failed IT project are these: lack of end-user engagement, unclear specification, changes in scope, lack of management support, lack of planning, unrealistic and unclear goals.

(Three compelling reasons to reshape your business processes, not your software) Has your computer ever crashed while you were doing something important, causing you to lose all your work? A natural first reaction to this situation is frustration: your work is gone, your effort went in vain, you’ll…

The degree of fit is an important indicator of your project’s alignment with the standard functionality. After you determine the degree of fit, and understand what it means for the project, do you just passively accept the findings, or do you do something to make them more favorable?