Question 1

1. Having an agile project plan instead of a waterfall plan

2. Have a biweekly meeting with the team to understand what the progress of each
sprint
3. To understand where slippages occur
4. Ensure accurate knowledge transfer takes place
5. Ensuring accurate KPI are set into place (Milestones, Budgets)
6. Quantifying problems based on project problems by employing tools like EVM where
planned value, earned value and Actual costs are taken into account which will help
identify slippages, so that corrective actions can be taken.
7. Maintain realistic scope as per the timelines for each sprint
8. Maintaining a project buffer for each sprint to offset slippages
9. Form a technical team to understand the full scope of the project
10. Do not overboard the requirements
11. Sign offs at each stage of the agile plan.

Question 2

For ERP implementation, both the company’s profile and the consultants capability is equally
important.

As seen in Omantels case, ERP vendor selection was only taken based on the company’s
profile which was the main reason for not meeting the timelines for implantation and was not
as successful as it should have been.

On the contrary, if consultants capability is chosen as the sole criteria then the consultant
might not have enough resources to support the whole scope of the project.

Ideally, the company must go for both the consultants capability and the company’s profile is
equally important and the firm should do its due diligence going through the company’s past
experience with implementation projects in a similar industry. References can be taken to
ensure the company capability on delivery. This not only ensures the company’s consulting
capabilities, but all issues during the project implementation can be highlighted.
Another approach that company’s usually follow is when the consultants are usually
interviewed by the firm to see if they are a good fit to understand their business processes
and in line with what the company is expecting.

Question 3

1. Defining the requirements and developing a plan accordingly

2. Business process reengineering to analyze and suggest the structural changes
3. Checking overall compatibility of Software with existing systems
4. Better collaboration with the Vendor, Oracle.
5. Better collaboration and communication between in house and Oracle project teams
6. They could have had better in-house expertise by assigning business experts full time
that they don’t have to jump back to their departments. They could have reduced their
reliance on Oracle.
7. A well-defined testing plan and scope to ensure that the functionalities are properly
tested
8. Robust user training plan can be implemented in the testing phase rather than after
go-live phase, giving the end users ample time to get accustomed to the system
9. Multiple release strategies to implement ERP modules in manageable chunks that the
organization is capable of absorbing
10. Setting KPIs and KRAs to ensure that the plan is properly implemented and people are
accountable for the processes
11. Transparent information flow