E-Business and ERP: Rapid Implementation and Project Planning at Dominant Systems Book Store

"this is a useful book for any organisation thinking of implementing a new ERP system" (Sunday Business, 26 August, 2001)

"useful guideextensive explorationgive you lots of useful advice and assistance" (Supply Management, 18 October, 2001)

"does provide a comprehensive overview of how an ERP implementation should be planned and managed" (Information Age, December 2001)

Customer Reviews & Comments
This book provides a sound approach to planning and managing an ERP rapid implementation project, but falls short of the mark on the "E-Business" part alluded to in the title. First, the strengths: the rapid implementation roadmap that is the topic of chapter 2 is thorough and well thought out. The phases are commit [to the project], start, manage, analyze, configure, test, change, support, convert, prepare, go live and improve. The roadmap gives both structure to a project plan and breaks it down into manageable pieces. Chapter 3 covers vendor selection, and provides excellent material for developing RFIs and RFPs and evaluating responses from vendors. Among the best practices given here are identifying key requirements, focusing on what is essential and using a proof-of-concept approach. Managing the rapid implementation, chapter 4's topic, is comprehensive and is consistent with sound project management practices. Key areas that are particularly strong address taking a deliverables-based approach, managing scope and project issue management. These are the ingredients of a successful implementation and the author covers them in depth. Chapter 5 covers the people part of the equation by providing guidance on how to organize the implementation team, roles and responsibilities, and managing change. My favorite two chapters are 6 and 8. Chapter 6 addresses nine essential factors for success, the best (in my opinion) is the rule that no reengineering is allowed during the implementation. This is sage advice because if you attempt to take advantage of opportunities to reengineer you are going to quickly drift outside of project scope, not to mention slowing to a crawl what is supposed to be a rapid implementation. Chapter 8, my other favorite chapter, gives a list of "project accelerators", which are methods or processes that will ensure that the rapid implementation is rapid. Weaknesses: (1) The author does not address E-business despite the title of this book. I am going to assume that the publisher insisted on including that in the title. (2) There are some glaring gaps in the author's "eXtended Enterprise System" (EXS) framework. He cites six layers using the technical infrastructure as the foundation and moving up through a transactional backbone, advanced applications, cross-application repository and a management dashboard as the capstone. What is missing from the picture is middleware, including transaction monitors, message queuing and the other "glue" that holds together an enterprise architecture. While this book is more suited for project managers, the omission is serious because the middleware layer increases the scope and complexity of an ERP project as well as the cost. (3) Technology support issues (chapter 7) was not strong in identifying release criteria to production, not the artifacts that production needs in order to support an ERP system. Release to production is a critical point in the life cycle that affects IT service delivery, as well as operational considerations (performance and capacity baselines, workload scheduling, etc.). Recommendation: The rapid implementation approach given in this book is complete and attainable. The author gives practical advice that can be applied to not only ERP implementations, but other system implementations as well. As such, this is a good book for project managers and upper IT management. If you note the gaps I cited above and take them into account, this book will lead you through a successful implementation. I am subtracting a star for the misleading title and the weaknesses, but still highly recommend this book.

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