People, product and process are the cornerstones of delivering quality projects in alignment with general project management functional elements. For Hosaf Fibres and IT services provider IOCORE, it was the people component that enabled the successful technical upgrade of Hosaf`s SAP system.
In March 2003, IOCORE SAP Solutions was contracted by Hosaf Fibres to upgrade its SAP system from version 4.0b Unix to a 4.6c version on a NT platform.
"We contracted IOCORE to do the technical upgrade of our SAP system as they structured a project plan that accommodated our business requirements and they had the right skills," says Grant Litkie, Financial Director, Hosaf Fibres.
Says Mark Ruthel, Project Manager, IOCORE SAP Solutions: "At IOCORE we believe in a partnership implementation, where we deliver a project for a client - with a client. IOCORE`s team of eight consultants not only had the right skills to meet the project deliverables, but most importantly they had the buy-in and support from Hosaf`s management team and its users."
According to Ruthel, almost two-thirds of projects fail owing to human resource issues. The people component, which is considered to be the "softer science" in the context of project implementations, is often discounted heavily, resulting in misaligned expectations and minimal contribution from users when eliciting technical or functional requirements.
This was not the case at Hosaf. "Hosaf`s users, managed by the IT department in the context of the project upgrade, were enthusiastic about the system upgrade and supported the implementation by conducting thorough unit, scenario and integrated tests. They dedicated valuable business operational hours to gain knowledge transfer from IOCORE`s consultants on the system navigation, look and feel and business transaction execution changes," says Ruthel.
He says buy-in and support from a client`s executive and senior management is necessary for a project to start on the right footing. A company`s management team can make the mistake of distancing themselves from directly engaging in a project, and in doing so they create the perception that it is insignificant. They remove themselves from the progress pulse and critical path maintenance that culminates in quality and timeous deliverables within scope and budget.
"Hosaf`s management played an integral role in the technical upgrade from start to finish," says Ruthel. "They set the project deliverables at a very high level and took part in the pre-implementation, scoping and planning phases. They monitored IOCORE`s ASAP methodology, which is used to track, monitor and manage project implementations, participated in testing the outputs of the deliverables on a regular basis and attended training sessions delivered by the IOCORE consultants."
Says Litkie: "It took IOCORE 60 days to successfully implement the technical upgrade and the result was a smooth transition to 4.6c with minimal business downtime. We were up-and-running after four days."
He says it was the face-to-face training that IOCORE offered Hosaf`s users and the ongoing interaction that ultimately contributed to the success of the project.
Other upgrade benefits include improvements to Hosaf`s SAP system response time. It can now be used as a base for tapping into the 4.6c modular functionality enhancements, used to optimise business operating efficiencies.
"IOCORE delivered according to the project plan, but it was their people approach and knowledge transfer that enabled a smooth transition," says Litkie.
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