No two enterprise system implementations are quite the same. Kind of like higher ed snowflakes – the challenges (limited resources) and the goals (improved services for students, faculty and staff) may be similar, but the people and politics make every implementation unique.
But in our years of helping institutions implement enterprise technology solutions, we have found a common thread: implementation projects are really ‘change events’. And all change events have three basic characteristics (hint: technology isn’t one of them).
In every change event, three simple outcomes will occur:
- People will gain something new and different
- People will lose something that they used to have
- Some things will simply stay the same
For anyone who’s lived through an enterprise systems implementation, these three basic characteristics will feel very familiar:
Some things are new and different…
…business processes will likely have changed to adopt best practice, and ideally new functionality will be available to users.
Some things are left behind…
…“shadow systems” with duplicative data will ideally be replaced with an authoritative data source in an integrated system and ad-hoc customization requests will be limited with new governance.
Some things stay the same…
…applications will be processed, transcripts will be generated and external reporting requirements will be met – the “how’s” of each of these might change, but the end results will not.
So how can institutions be prepared to handle these ‘change events’? It’s all about building a culture of change to proactively help their stakeholders adapt to the new and different, accept the things that will be left behind, and understand that some things will remain unchanged.
Check out our white paper “Creating a Culture of Change on Enterprise System Implementations” for a comprehensive guide to help institutions navigate their very unique implementations.
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