An ERP implementation is the most disruptive technology project most organizations ever undertake. It touches every system, every process, and every person in the business simultaneously. Done without discipline, it can paralyze operations at the worst possible moment. Done well, it transforms the operational foundation of the organization without significant disruption to the business that funds it. The difference is almost entirely in how the project is managed.
Parallel Running: The Safety Net You Cannot Skip
The single most important risk mitigation in an ERP go-live is parallel running — operating both the old system and the new system simultaneously for a defined period, reconciling the outputs of both to confirm that the new system is producing accurate results before the old system is switched off. Organizations skip parallel running because it is expensive: it doubles the data entry workload for the parallel period. That cost is real. But the alternative — going live without validation and discovering errors in production — is consistently more expensive. Every major ERP failure I have been called in to help with after the fact was a failure where parallel running was skipped or shortened under schedule pressure.
Managing Business Operations During Implementation
ERP implementations consume the time and attention of the most capable people in the business — the senior operations managers, the experienced process owners, the technical staff who understand how current systems work. These are the same people the business needs to run operations during the implementation. The project plan needs to explicitly address this conflict and build in realistic allowances for operational demands on key project participants. Projects that assume their key resources are available eighty or one hundred percent of the time to the project consistently miss milestones because that assumption is never true.
Communication as a Project Management Tool
The people who are not in the project team — the warehouse staff, the accounts payable clerks, the customer service representatives — are the people whose work will change at go-live. Their anxiety, their resistance, and their workarounds are the adoption risks that determine whether the system delivers its intended benefits. Regular, honest communication about what is changing, when, and why — delivered through channels and people that employees trust — is not a soft supplement to the technical project. It is a core project management activity with measurable impact on go-live success.