Veteran ERP consultants understand how to execute an implementation project. They can call on their years of experience to design a new project that will have a good chance at success. When the next generation of consultants joins the team, these practices will be passed along, even if there is no process in place to manage the knowledge transfer. Many implementation consultants can probably recall their own experience learning the way it's always been done at their early jobs.
Consulting companies can apply their own implementation methodology based on previous projects, and there is no problem with this as long as the company achieves its objectives and satisfies its customers. The company should also be committed to continuously improving its own methodology and building on it by experience.
However, there is a range of problems with an implementation methodology based on transferring the senior consultant's knowledge and experience to the next class of junior consultants. Such informal or small-scale approaches will lead to variances in implementation approach between different consultants, even in the same company, and it can create differences from one project to another, even for the same consultant. To add to the risk, a consulting firm that depends on consultants to provide an implementation methodology is exposed to a loss of creditability with their customers, if the consultant is changed and the new consultant has his own approach.
Alternatively, there is an implementation methodology built up by an experienced organization where information and data have been gathered from a range of experienced implementers and based on the best practices from a broad range of previous projects and experiences across a range of business domains and client types. That organization is, of course, Microsoft, and the methodology is Microsoft Dynamics Sure Step.
Microsoft brought Sure Step to the Microsoft Dynamics market in 2007 and has recently launched its online version. The common question from implementers is: why do we need a standard implementation methodology for ERP when we have our own?
At a high level, there are common phases of an ERP implementation project, but the depth and complexity of each phase depend on the nature of the project itself. The procedure to execute the project will depend on the consulting firm and its approach in project execution, as well as its style in managing customers. The phases are diagnostic, analysis, design, development, deployment, and operation. The key characteristics of the Microsoft Dynamics Sure Step methodology are as follows:
- It covers the main implementation project phases, activities, tasks, documents templates, and output.
- It minimizes consultant effort to stop reinventing the documentation and templates.
- It not only covers the implementation phases (analysis, design, development, deployment, and operation), but also takes into consideration sales and presales activities in the diagnostic phase.
- It is aligned with other Microsoft methodologies such as Microsoft Delivery Methodology (SDM), Microsoft Solution Selling Process (MSSP), and Microsoft Solution Framework (MSF). This gives it a variety of guidance built on Microsoft methodologies.
- It is designed especially for Microsoft Dynamics products (such as AX, NAV, SL, GP, and CRM).
- It complies with Project Management Institute (PMI) methodologies (scope management, time management, cost management, resource management, risk management, quality management, and procurement management).
- It includes a huge collection of templates and documents according to phase activity and shows the integration between phases and activities.
- It contains implementation project type customization (Enterprise, Standard, Rapid, Agile, and Upgrade).