Many organisations have adopted a strategy to implement packaged applications in place of the traditional bespoke systems that were prevalent up until the 1990s. This is partly to do with the lower cost platforms that have emerged to compete with the mainframe but also because the choice of packages has increased. The impact is being felt in those organisations that have legacy systems to replace as well as organisations with no prior systems.
Some of the drivers for choosing packages over other options are seen as:
- lower cost of ownership (implementation and ongoing costs)
- tried and tested (low risk)
- quicker to implement
- the benefit of a mature product from day one
Although the benefits of the packaged approach are fairly clear and relatively simple to quantify, achieving them requires effective project management from the client side. The supplier will have their project manager to look after their activities but the client organisation, and specifically the business department (not IT) must be responsible for the success of the project as a whole. For example, they must be responsible for:
- managing resources (Technical, Business and Suppliers)
- managing organisational change including business process re-engineering
- managing the budget
- reporting progress
- specifying and running tests for acceptance
- working with IT to provide the appropriate IT environment
Unlike software development projects, the IT department cannot provide the same level of support and involvement in a packaged application as they are no longer the system experts. They will have specific responsibilities but overall project ownership and project management is usually not one of them. These projects therefore present new challenges to the business. How they deal with these challenges will ultimately mean the difference between success and failure. Templar Consulting have developed a methodology or blue print for dealing with the specific issues of package based projects and this is available as part of our package implementation services. It can be used on its own or with PRINCE2.
