At Raven Intel, we know a thing or two about projects going over-schedule. As a peer review site, dedicated to Enterprise Software implementation, one of the first questions we ask software customers is “was your project delivered on time?” Over 60% of the Enterprise Software projects reviewed on our site were delivered late—with 16% being double the amount of time anticipated or more!
The consequences of late projects are always greater than a missed calendar deadline, and often go hand-in-hand with greater costs (going over-budget), increased compliance risks (particularly when payroll is involved) and overall dissatisfaction/team morale issues.
The real question is, why is this? There are a variety of factors, and here we explore 6 major reasons that we see for projects being late (and how to guard against this.)
1. Your project plan was overly ambitious.
It is easy to have an ‘optimism bias’—this sense that because your high-performing team is motivated and driven, or under a particular deadline (incentive-ized or otherwise) it will move things more quickly than is typical for a project of similar scope. In many cases, the complexity involved is minimized and ample time that should be accounted for important aspects (e.g. integrations!) is abbreviated. These type of projects are doomed to be late from the beginning because they ignore previous history of similar projects for the notion that ‘things will be different for us.’ Think again.
Customer Quotes:
> “We underestimated the time that was needed in data cleanup prior to conversion.”
> “A big bang implementation with 10+ countries was not the best approach in retrospect, we ended up moving to an incremental implementation approach close to original Go-Live date.”
> “Budget more time than you think you’ll need and find a partner that can help you set realistic expectations.”
Advice: The best predictor of success, is previous history. Before you embark upon your project, talk to your peers who’ve done a similar project about their time frame expectations versus reality. If their project was late, ask them what they could have done from the beginning to ensure an on-time delivery. Ask about how much time was dedicated to Change Management. This is an area you do not want to shortchange!
(Raven Intel is a great source of information here as well. On-time delivery is one of the critical KPIs that you can read in every peer review. We literally have hundreds of “lessons learned” from customers that you can read throughout our site.)
2. You changed the scope mid-project.
We ask customers how accurate the scope of the project was defined in the beginning. In 46% of projects, the vendor / partner implementation firm accurately scoped the project, but it was the business/customer who changed the scope along the way. Unless another area of the project is put on the back-burner, a scope change will create a domino effect—your project will take more time, resulting in more cost, and many times result in a change in team (depending on how much extra time will be needed for the change.)
Customer Quote: “The challenges we had on this project were not at all related to {this vendor}, but instead to our internal business team, who changed their requirements multiple times during the course of the project.”
Advice: As much as possible, keep your original plan, and add new aspects after you accomplish phase 1 (or phase 0 in some cases!) If you know you are working with a team that is going to drum up new needs along the way (at least 46% of the time they do!)–double or triple the amount of time / budget for your project. You’ll need the extra padding.
3. Too much time was wasted along the way.
I had a long conversation with a CIO this past week who was lamenting his global HCM project being way behind schedule. I asked if they had a weekly / regular cadence of ‘status meetings’ to ensure the project stayed on track. He laughed and said it felt like the team had meetings to schedule meetings, and that all their time was tied up meeting instead of doing. Like anything else, a regular cadence of meetings is critical to have on the calendar, but keeping those meetings brief, on-task and concise requires a strong project lead who knows how to facilitate meetings, manage people and is a good communicator.
Customer Quote: “Have an experienced project manager that communicates effectively and escalates issues appropriately.”
Advice: Make sure you have an experienced project manager on BOTH the customer and partner implementation firm side who knows how to lead PEOPLE as well as PROJECTS. While these are software projects—their success comes down to the people that lead change and can get users to embrace and adopt it!
4. Your team changed.
Change in the project team / project lead might be the worst thing to happen to a project. Getting a team aligned and working cohesively to the plan is a huge challenge in itself, but when you add the dynamic of people change / knowledge transfer–that spells trouble. The more a team stays in tact, the more likely it is to successfully accomplish the project mission.
Customer Quote: “Establish support model/vendor up front to ensure deep knowledge of systems and integration, and make sure you have a release strategy and testing resources identified. Continue to maintain all configuration documents post-implementation, as changes occur.”
Advice: The bigger and longer a project duration, the more likely you will be to have team changes. People will inevitably change jobs, move or have other personal priorities that come up. As much as possible, create a governance model that ensures that people stay committed to a project and time frame (e.g. bonuses for retention / successful milestone completions) and ensure proper documentation is completed throughout the project.
There are certain partner implementation firms and even entire software partner ecosystems that are more likely to change resources mid-project. Make sure to read the partner’s reviews at Raven Intel (paying close attention to on-time delivery and team changes) before you hire them.
5. You chose the wrong partner / team to help lead you.
Enterprise Software project success depends on 2 wise decisions: 1. Choosing the right partner and 2. Defining a solid project scope, team and timeline to create the strong foundation upon which to build. If you don’t have a solid partner who is committed to your project, having a late project is the least of your worries. We rarely see customers who have had a bad experience with their implementation and partner rate their software vendor well (and no software vendor is immune to implementation challenges). We have also found no clear pattern that suggests larger, more well-known consulting firms produce better project outcomes for their clients. What matters most is that you find a partner who is committed to your project and success, and is able to a bring qualified, experienced team to the table.
Customer Quote: “Check out a partner’s expertise thoroughly – not just that they are experience with the software/vendor in question, but that they have completed projects that are the same/similar as you are proposing. Finding out that your partner has proposed a solution, based on their understanding of your requirements but a misunderstanding of the software’s capabilities can be a time-consuming and expensive path to travel. Get and check references and sample projects from other clients from both the partner and the software vendor!”
Advice: Hire a partner with the best possible fit for your project. Here are 10 questions to help you.
6. You didn’t have the right executive sponsorship to get things done effectively.
The involvement of an executive sponsor is critical to ensuring you get things done in a timely manner, and can help you break through internal barriers when needed. There is nothing worse than a delay because an executive sign-off is needed and is sitting on someone’s desk while they are ‘out of the country’ / etc.
Customer quotes:
> “Get the right decision makers in the room during design sessions.”
> “Ensure business stakeholders are engaged and available.”
> “It is essential that all key stakeholders at the operations level be included in requirement gathering not just high level management.”
> “The specific consultants matter, but the leadership matters just as much.”
Advice: “Grass-roots” changes or changes from the bottom-up are extremely difficult, and having an ambassador at the top will help ensure a project gets the attention it deserves. Don’t do a project without a strong executive sponsor.
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For over 25 years, Bonnie Tinder has worked with top Enterprise Software companies leading implementation, marketing and sales initiatives. In 2018, she founded Raven Intel—a peer review site for Enterprise Software Consulting, designed to help customers make a well-informed choice in an implementation partner.
In building the Raven Intel community, Bonnie has interviewed over 500 customers about their Enterprise Software implementation experiences and has produced several reports on the state of HCM implementation and software. In October, 2018, Raven Intel partnered with IHRIM (International Human Resources Information Management Association) to study over 200 HR software projects, and produced an “HR Software Project Study”, released at this year’s HR Technology Conference.
Select publications include:
- HR Software Project Study, produced by IHRIM & Raven Intel, 10/1/2019
- HCM Implementation MythbustersReport, published 1/30/2019
- State of HCM Implementation, published, 10/8/2019
- 7 Regrets of Enterprise Software Implementations
- 10 Questions to Ask a Potential Consulting Partner
- What I learned as a Ghost Shopper for HR services
Bonnie holds a B.A. from Taylor University and is a native of Chicago, where she lives with her family.