- Assess Your Current State
- Communicate Your Vision
- Define Your Change Management Strategy
- Train Your Team
- Test Your System
- Support Your Team
- Here’s What Else To Consider
1. Assess Your Current State
Before you embark on an ERP upgrade, you need to understand your current state of affairs. This means reviewing your existing ERP system, its performance, its functionality, its compatibility, and its pain points. You also need to identify your business goals, your requirements, your expectations, and your priorities for the upgrade. By conducting a thorough assessment, you can establish a clear baseline, a realistic scope, and a feasible budget for the upgrade project.
2. Communicate Your Vision
Once you have a clear vision of what you want to achieve with the upgrade, you need to communicate it to your team and other stakeholders. You need to explain why the upgrade is necessary, what benefits it will bring, what challenges it will pose, and what roles and responsibilities it will entail. You also need to solicit feedback, address concerns, and build trust and buy-in. By communicating your vision, you can align your team and other stakeholders with the upgrade objectives and expectations.
3. Define Your Change Management Strategy
An ERP upgrade is not just a technical project, but also a change management project. It involves changing the way your team works, the tools they use, the data they access, and the processes they follow. To manage these changes effectively, you need to define a change management strategy that covers the following aspects: stakeholder analysis, change impact analysis, change readiness assessment, change communication plan, change training plan, and change reinforcement plan. By defining your change management strategy, you can prepare your team for the upcoming changes and help them adapt to the new ERP system.
4. Train Your Team
Training is a crucial part of preparing your team for an ERP upgrade. Training helps your team acquire the necessary skills, knowledge, and confidence to use the new ERP system. Training also helps your team understand the changes in the business processes, data flows, and user roles that the upgrade entails. To train your team effectively, you need to design a training plan that covers the following aspects: training objectives, training methods, training materials, training schedule, training delivery, and training evaluation. By training your team, you can ensure that they are ready to operate the new ERP system efficiently and effectively.
5. Test Your System
Testing is another essential part of preparing your team for an ERP upgrade. Testing helps you verify that the new ERP system works as intended, meets your requirements, and integrates with your existing systems. Testing also helps you identify and resolve any issues, errors, or gaps that may arise during the upgrade process. To test your system properly, you need to perform various types of testing, such as functional testing, integration testing, performance testing, security testing, and user acceptance testing. By testing your system, you can ensure that it is reliable, secure, and functional.
6. Support Your Team
Finally, you need to support your team during and after the ERP upgrade. Supporting your team means providing them with the necessary resources, guidance, and assistance to cope with the upgrade process and the new ERP system. Supporting your team also means monitoring their performance, feedback, and satisfaction, and addressing any issues, problems, or concerns that they may have. To support your team effectively, you need to establish a support plan that covers the following aspects: support channels, support roles, support resources, support metrics, and support feedback. By supporting your team, you can help them overcome any challenges, improve their productivity, and enhance their experience.
SOURCE: https://www.linkedin.com/advice/3/how-can-you-prepare-your-team-erp-upgrade-evvje?trk=cah1
