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246 Chapter 9 • Organizational Change and Business Process Reengineering

Change Management
Change management was discussed in Chapter 4. There are also a number of books and research
papers on change management that will offer you much more detail on the change management
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process. The following is a standard definition:
Change Management is the process of developing a planned approach to change in
an organization. The objective is typically to maximize the collective benefits for all
people involved in the change and to minimize the risk of failure of implementing the
change. The discipline of change management deals primarily with the human aspect
of change, and is therefore related to pure and industrial psychology. 5

The mention of change management at this point is to clue you in to the fact that change
management must be an integral part of the overall implementation planning strategy to
implement an ERP system successfully. The focus of this section will be more on the OPM3 area.

ORGANIZATION PROJECT MANAGEMENT MATURITY MODEL Project Management Institute
describes OPM3 as “seeking to create a framework within which organizations can re-examine
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their pursuit of strategic objectives via Best Practices in organizational project management.” In
other words it will help companies to understand the level of competency and ability to imple-
ment an ERP system successfully. In this case successfully means meeting the overall needs of
the organization as described in the project scope and delivered on time and on budget. The more
skilled companies have a greater chance of implementing ERP systems than those with lesser
skills. The lesser-skilled companies can raise those skills through the use of other resources. This
can be accomplished through external resources (i.e., consultants) or a combination of hiring
new staff with the proper skills and training existing staff to meet the project skill requirements.
The OPM3 model is a three-step continuous improvement process. The steps include
knowledge, assessment, and improvement which are shown in Figure 9-1.
For the purposes of an ERP implementation, the steps that need to be addressed to ensure
a successful ERP implementation will be clear after the knowledge and assessment steps. The
timing of when to start an implementation must be based on the current state of the organization
and the plan to improve, if needed. Without the OPM3 methodology or a methodology similar to
it, an ERP system implementation runs the risk of not meeting expectations, as well as of being
late and over budget. The benefits of an OPM3 analysis are as follows:

•OPM3 helps organizations identify and deliver the right projects to advance their strategy.
With OPM3, you will use organizational inputs to align projects across operations and
select only the projects that will deliver business results.
•Improved project performance and return on investment with OPM3—experience a shift in
thinking that will position your organization for immediate gains and long-term success.
OPM3 isolates process improvements while forcing organizations to consider external
pressures increasing operational and organizational efficiency.
•OPM3 helps your organization align its strategy with the projects that sustain business
success. Through a comprehensive collection of best practices, OPM3 guides your orga-
nization on when to stay the course and when to change direction.

4 Esther Cameron, 2004, Making Sense of Change Management. Publisher: Kogan Page.
5 www.findwhitepapers.com/enterprise-applications/change-management/ (accessed March 5, 2007)
6 Project Management Institute. (2003). Organizational Project Management Maturity Model. Knowledge Foundation, xi.