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192 Chapter 7 • Operations and Postimplementation

were not ready to “go live.” In assessing an ERP project’s readiness for Go-live, it is vital to
focus the efforts of the teams to ensure that task and activities are completed before going live.
This allows project management to address any outstanding issues that may jeopardize the
Go-live date. An elaborate readiness process is considered a “best practice.” The readiness
assessments must be conducted and communicated to the team and organization, and they should
begin well in advance of the Go-live date. This readiness process needs to include as many team
members, appropriate users, and managers as possible because it helps the overall organization
to understand that the implementation is near and changes will be taking place. This is also good
for the change management process. During a project it seems like the system will never be
implemented. There is so much work needed to be done, and getting through it all is very
overwhelming. A good readiness process cuts through all that and lets the different teams and
organization know that Go-live is not too far off.
Although it may seem like a lot of work to get to go live, much of the success of the
implementation lies with the stabilization and postproduction support processes. Stabilization is
the time from Go-live to about 90 days after, or until the number of issues and problems has been
reduced to a small, manageable number. During the stabilization period, development within the
system should cease. All resources should be focused on ensuring users understand how to use the
system and that issues and problems are resolved as quickly as possible. How well the teams
respond to stabilization will somewhat determine how well the system is accepted by the end
users and management. Daily and continual monitoring of the implementation issues will provide
a basis for moving from stabilization to postproduction support. In the case of Hugger-Mugger,
the stabilization process brought into focus a number of problems with the implementation
methodology prior to going live. This will always be the case.
Training also gears up during the readiness process and continues through stabilization and
postproduction support. A successful ongoing training component will be important to the long-
term success of an ERP implementation, beginning just before Go-live. Training needs to address
all the different processes for the users because the new system will seem overwhelming. In
addition, training should be a continual, ongoing process that will allow the end users to know that
there will be help if required. Users will even want and need to take refresher courses to better
understand how the system works better. Figure 7-1 depicts the areas of focus for this chapter.

Requirements General System Stabilization
Gathering/Gap Build and Test Implementation and Production
Analysis Design Support

Functional

Technical

Change Management

FIGURE 7-1 Sample Project Methodology.