The Unmitigated Disaster
Posted on 11. Mar, 2009
Categories: Consulting, Project Management
In Why New Systems Fail, I discuss the four major types of system failures, the most severe of which I term “The Unmitigated Disaster.” To that end, the following story recently caught my attention.
Shane Jewelers filed bankruptcy in January. While this sadly isn’t an uncommon occurrence these days, this filing interests me more than most. While not exclusively an ERP-related issue, Shane’s implementation of SAP was at least a contributing factor to the company’s financial turmoil. (Of course, this begs the question: Was it the fault of the vendor or the consultants?)
Now, let’s not get ahead of ourselves here. The intent of this post is not to excoriate SAP or other Tier 1 ERP vendors. A Tier 2 solution or application created by an independent software vendor (ISV) may well have resulted in the same outcome for Shane. Without knowing all of the particulars, I certainly cannot pass judgment. However, if I were a betting man (strike “if”), I would wager that management issues played at least a contributing role to this project’s failure and, ultimately, the company’s demise. Some of my questions related to this implementation are:
- Was this project sufficiently scoped at the beginning?
- Did Shane’s management clearly articulate its business requirements?
- Were Shane end-users able to properly define their business processes in a sufficiently detailed manner?
- Were Shane end-users available for system training or did their “day jobs” interfere?
- Were Shane end-users available for system testing or did their “day jobs” interfere?
- Did SAP salespeople overlook red flags in order to win the deal? Did they hope that “delivery” would save the day?
My guess is that some–if not all–of these factors played key roles in the system’s failure and the company’s demise.
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