|
 Mr.
O. Arivazhagan, B.E (Honors), PMP, SSGB, CEO of IIPM, was invited to lecture on
ERP/SAP Implementation
Project Management by Seal Infotech Pvt Ltd, a unit of SAP India
and a leading IT Company at Chennai on 19th August at Hotel Chola Sheraton, Chennai.
In his
lecture, Mr. Ari addressed the following issues in connection with
Implementation of ERP/SAP Implementation Projects Management.
How to capture Scope when both the customer and the vendor are not clear
about the requirements of the Project so as to keep the scope creep minimum.
He emphasized the need for the project managers to be
“assertive” when
facing uncontrolled and unjustifiable change requests from the client. The
need for involving and getting the consensus of all key stakeholders of the
project in order to minimize fire-fighting later in the SWDLC was a key input
to the participants.
He also gave tips about “to include or not to include” requirements
gathering as one of the phases of the software development life cycle (SWDLC)
depending on whether a phased-implementation or big-bang approach is used. He
took the help of Parkinson’s Law when he answered one of the participant’s
query regarding padding of schedule estimates and ways to control schedule
slippages.
To yet an another query
from one of the participants about schedule and cost risks, Mr. Ari
suggested to have Contingency Reserve (CR) and Management Reserve (MR) to
help the Project Manager and the senior Management in times of need during project execution.
Then the interest turned towards the Quality aspects of ERP/SAP
implementation projects. The participants were curious to note the fact that
any ERP implementation project for a company which is not having its process
matured at least at 3 Sigma level may not produce the desired result and
hence he suggested looking in to the process improvement first before
embarking on ERP Projects. Regarding a question related to Critical Success
Factors (CSF),
Mr. Ari emphasized the need to be aware of the personality
types of the Project Management Team (viz extroverts, introverts etc.) in
order to ensure job satisfaction by deploying the right people for the right
job.
Answering a question related to estimate of Contingency Reserves, Mr. Ari
briefly explained about the Risk Management Techniques using Quantitative and
Qualitative methods as explained in PMBOK Guide of PMI USA.
Finally, the lecture concluded with an emphasize on the need to integrate
all the modules and have Contingency Plans / Fall back Plan before going live
when big-bang approach is practiced in ERP/SAP implementation projects. |
