ORGANIZATIONAL AND TECHNOLOGICAL CRITICAL

SUCCESS FACTORS BEHAVIOR ALONG THE ERP

IMPLEMENTATION PHASES

José Esteves

Department of Lenguajes y Sistemas Informáticos , Universitat Politécnica de Catalunya, Jordi Girona Salgado 1-3 08034

Barcelona, Spain

Joan A. Pastor

Universitat Internacional de Catalunya,Immaculada 22

08017 Barcelona, Spain

Keywords: Enterprise Resource Planning, critical success factors, implementation phases, ERP implementation project

Abstract: This paper analyzes the evolution of organizational and t

echnological critical success factors along the ERP

implementation phases. The identification of factors leading to success or failure of ERP systems is an issue

of increasing importance, since the number of organizations choosing the ERP path keeps growing. Our

findings suggest that while both good organizational and technological perspectives are essential for a

successful ERP implementation project, their importance shifts as the project moves through its lifecycle.

1 INTRODUCTION

During the last years some studies have been

published in relation to the Critical Success Factors

(CSFs) topic in ERP implementations.. The

identification of factors leading to success or failure

of ERP implementations is an issue of increasing

importance, since the number of organizations

choosing the ERP path keeps growing.

In this paper we attempt to analyze how the

nizational and technological perspectives are

perceived along the ERP implementation phases.

Specifically, we have analyzed how the unified

model of CSFs for ERP implementation projects

presented by Esteves and Pastor (2000) fits into a

organizational-technological framework. In our

study, to evaluate organizational and technological

perspectives, we have used their CSFs unified

model. Understanding the CSFs that help to lead to

successful implementations of Information Systems

(IS) has been a key interest for practitioners as well

as many IS researchers (Haines and Goodhue 2000).

This paper is organized as follows. First, we

prese

t the unified model of CSFs and the SAP

implementation methodology. Then we describe the

research framework for evaluating CSFs relevance.

Next, we discuss the relevance of each CSF taken

into account organizational and technological

perspectives. Finally we discuss the results and

further work.

2 UNIFIED MODEL OF CSFS FOR

ERP IMPLEMENTATIONS

The CSF approach has been applied to many aspects

and tasks of information systems, and more recently

to ERP systems implementations, (e.g. Dolmetsch et

al. 1998, Holland et al. 1999, Parr et al. 1999, Nah et

al. 2001). Based in a set of studies published by

several authors, containing commented lists of CSFs

in ERP implementations, Esteves and Pastor (2000)

unified these lists and created a CSFs unified model

Esteves J. and A. Pastor J. (2004).

ORGANIZATIONAL AND TECHNOLOGICAL CRITICAL SUCCESS FACTORS BEHAVIOR ALONG THE ERP IMPLEMENTATION PHASES.

In Proceedings of the Sixth International Conference on Enterprise Information Systems, pages 45-53

DOI: 10.5220/0002598000450053

 SciTePress

for ERP implementation projects. The unified model

is represented in figure 1. The advantage of this

model is that it unifies a set of studies related with

lists of CSFs identified by other authors; the CSFs

are categorized in different perspectives and, each

CSF is identified and defined.

In the authors’ view, the nature of the ERP

implementation issues includes strategic, tactical,

organizational and technological perspectives.

Therefore, we propose that the CSFs model should

have these four perspectives. The organizational

perspective is related with concerns like

organizational structure and culture and, business

processes. The technological perspective focuses on

aspects related to the particular ERP product in

consideration and on other related technical aspects,

such as hardware and base software needs. The

strategic perspective is related with core

competencies accomplishing the organization's

mission and long-term goals, while the tactical

perspective affects the business activities with short-

term objectives.

2.1 CSFs Relevance

In 1988, Pinto and Prescott (1988, p. 5), claimed that

“the majority of the studies in the critical success

factor research stream have been theoretical and

have assumed a static view of the importance of

various factors over the life of a project. In other

words, a critical success factor was assumed to have

the same degree of importance throughout the life of

the project”. Therefore, Pinto and Prescott (1988)

examined changes in the criticality of project CSFs

over the life cycle of a project. They concluded that

the relevance of CSFs is subject to change at

different phases of the project life cycle. They stated

that “this finding implies that future use of critical

success factor analysis and implementation,

regardless of the area to be examined, may be

contingent on other organizational phenomena, such

as project (or organizational) life cycle” (Pinto and

Prescott, p. 17).

Strategic Tactical

Organizational

• Sustained management support

• Effective organizational change management

• Good project scope management

• Adequate project team composition

• Comprehensive business process

reengineering

• Adequate project champion role

• User involvement and participation

• Trust between partners

• Dedicated staff and consultants

• Strong communication inwards and outwards

• Formalized project plan/schedule

• Adequate training program

• Preventive trouble shooting

• Appropriate usage of consultants

• Empowered decision-makers

Technological

• Adequate ERP implementation strategy

• Avoid customization

• Adequate ERP version

• Adequate infrastructure and interfaces

• Legacy systems knowledge

• Formalized testing plan

• Adequate data migration process

Figure 1: The critical success factors unified model for ERP implementations

Subsequent studies on CSF approach have

addressed not solely the identification of CSFs but

also their relevance along the project life cycle.

However, the number of these types of studies is still

very limited with most studies only focusing on CSF

identification. The assumption that CSFs relevance

varying along the implementation phases is slightly

different from some studies that try to define CSFs

for each phase of the project life cycle. Pinto and

Prescott (1988) use the same set of CSFs and

examined their relevance along the project phases

while some studies define different sets of CSFs for

each project phase. These approaches are different

although some researchers are empirically using the

same assumption stated by Pinto and Prescott (1988)

since they are providing what they call “the most

critical” or “most relevant” or “the top” CSFs which

means they are only defining the most relevant CSF

but probably they are always using as a reference the

same set of CSFs.

With regarding to the research approach, to

study CSFs relevance researchers have used surveys

and case studies using interviews. The typical

procedure is to ask participants to rank the most

relevant CSFs in each project phase and then create

a list of the most relevant CSFs in each project phase

or, they ask participants to evaluate CSFs relevance

using a Likert scale. Some authors have studied

CSFS along different IS project types: information

centers (Magal et al. 1988), IS implementation

ICEIS 2004 - DATABASES AND INFORMATION SYSTEMS INTEGRATION

projects (Pinto and Slevin 1988), Cooper and Zmud

(1990), ERP lifecycle (Somers and Nelson 2001,

Nah et al. 2001).

3 THE ASAP IMPLEMENTATION

METHODOLOGY

In 1996, SAP introduced the Accelerated SAP

(ASAP) implementation methodology with the goal

of speeding up SAP implementation projects. ASAP

was advocated to enable new customers to utilize the

experience and expertise gleaned from thousands of

implementations worldwide. This is specifically

targeted for small and medium enterprises adopting

SAP. The key phases of the ASAP methodology,

also known as the ASAP roadmap, are:

– Project preparation – the purpose of this phase

is to provide initial planning and preparation of

SAP project. The steps of this phase help

identify and plan the primary focus areas to be

considered such as: objectives, scope, plan and

definition of project team.

– Business blueprint - the purpose of this phase is

to create the business blueprint, which is a

detailed documentation of the results gathered

during requirements workshops/meetings. It will

allow the implementation project team to clearly

define their scope, and only focus on the SAP

processes needed to run the organization

business.

– Realization - the purpose of this phase is to

implement business and processes requirements

on the business blueprint. The objectives are

final implementation in the system, an overall

test, and the release of the system for production

(live) operation.

– Final preparation – the purpose of this phase is

to complete the final preparation, including

testing, end user training, system management

and cut over activities, to finalize the readiness

to go live. The final preparation phase also

serves to resolve all open issues.

– Go live & support - the purpose of this phase is

to move from a pre-production environment to

live production operation. A support

organization must be set up for end users to

provide long-term support. This phase is also

used to monitor system transactions and to

improve overall system performance. Finally the

completed project is closed.

The structure of each phase is the following:

each phase is composed of a group of work

packages. These work packages are structured in

activities, and each activity is composed of a group

of tasks. An example of two work packages of

ASAP, project kickoff and quality check, is

described in table 1. For each task, a definition, a set

of procedures, results and roles are provided in the

ASAP roadmap documentation. According to a

survey of Input company (Input 1999), organizations

have been more satisfied with SAP tools and

methodologies than with those of implementation

partners. Implementations where ASAP or Powered

by SAP methodologies were used averaged only 8

months, compared to 15 months for standard

implementations.

4 OUR PROPOSED CSF

RELEVANCE SCHEME

CSFs can either be ongoing, or they can be temporal

(Khandewal and Ferguson 1999). Khandewal and

Ferguson (1999) assert notwithstanding the earlier

Phase 5Phase 4Phase 3Phase 2Phase 1

CSFs in ERP Projects

ASAP

Methodology

Processes

CSFs in ERP Projects

ASAP

Methodology

Processes

CSFs Re l ev an ce

Proces s Quali ty Management

(PQM)

Coding Procedure

CSFs in ERP Projects

ASAP

Methodology

Processes

CSFs in ERP Projects

ASAP

Methodology

Processes

CSFs Relevance

Process Quality Management

(PQM)

Coding Procedure

CSFs in ERP Proj ects

ASAP

Methodology

Processes

CSFs in ERP Proj ects

ASAP

Methodology

Processes

CSFs Re l ev an ce

Process Quality Management

(PQM)

Coding Proce dure

CSFs in ERP Proj ects

ASAP

Methodology

Processes

CSFs in ERP Proj ects

ASAP

Methodology

Processes

CSFs Re l ev an ce

Process Quality Management

(PQM)

Coding Procedure

CSFs in ERP Projects

ASA P

Methodology

Processes

CSFs in ERP Projects

ASA P

Methodology

Processes

CSF s Re l ev a nc e

Process Quality Management

(PQM)

Coding Procedure

CSFs in ERP Projects

ASAP

Methodology

Processes

CSFs in ERP Projects

ASAP

Methodology

Processes

CSFs Re l ev an ce

Proces s Quali ty Management

(PQM)

Coding Procedure

Figure 2: Research framework followed

ORGANIZATIONAL AND TECHNOLOGICAL CRITICAL SUCCESS FACTORS BEHAVIOR ALONG THE ERP

IMPLEMENTATION PHASES

statement that the CSFs can either be ongoing, or

temporal that all CSFs can be defined in a way that

they are temporal. For example, formal plan and

schedule for the ERP implementation project can be

defined as a temporal CSF. This CSF will then be

considered having been achieved as soon as a

project plan is developed. The assumption is that

once the project plan is developed the ongoing

updating of this plan would be an integral part of the

project plan. All CSFs would thus belong to a point

in time, although they may differ in their degree of

temporality. Therefore, it is important to know these

points in time were CSFs are more relevant. Next,

we describe our research framework for evaluating

CSFs relevance along SAP implementation phases

and the relevance scheme obtained.

4.1 Research Framework for

Evaluating CSFs Relevance

We have used the Process Quality Management

(PQM) method (Ward 1990) to relate the CSFs with

the ASAP processes. The PQM method developed

by IBM is "designed to assist the management team

reach consensus on the most critical business

activities, i.e. those whose performance will have the

biggest impact on the success or failure of the

enterprise" (Ward 1990). PQM uses the concept of

CSFs (Rockart 1979) to encourage management

teams to focus their attention on the critical issues of

the business, and then to base the IT strategy on

these. Next, we describe the following steps of the

PQM method, as we have applied them in our

research case (see figure 2):

– First step: define the mission. We define the

following mission: "To implement the ERP

system, according to the organization's business

and organizational needs" and then "to show that

the ERP implementation will add value through

the satisfaction of the organization requirements

previously defined". This mission reflects the

intention of the whole group of people involved

in an ERP implementation project;

– Second step: define CSFs. We will use the CSFs

unified model proposed by Esteves and Pastor

(2000);

– Third step: define the processes. In our case, the

processes are those defined in the ASAP

methodology;

– Fourth step: establish the relationship of CSFs

versus ASAP processes. This is done through the

creation of the matrix presented in figure 2 and

table 1. For each one of the five SAP

implementation phases a matrix was created.

Next, we describe how the matrix of CSFs

versus ASAP processes was created.

According to Hardaker and Ward (1987), "the

object is to single out the processes that have a

primary impact on this particular CSF". What we are

looking for are those essential activities and not all

of them. The matrix in table 1 has been built in the

following way. We focused on each CSF and asked

this question: Which ASAP processes must be

performed especially well for us to be confident of

achieving this CSF? Then, we looked at all the

processes and decided which ones were important

for that CSF. Each time we established a relationship

between a CSF and a process, we marked a ‘1’ in the

corresponding cell of the matrix (see table 1). A

second process was used to validate and to get more

reliability in the research. We used a coding

procedure to analyze the ASAP documentation. The

coding procedure consisted in coding line-by-line all

the ASAP processes using a predefined list of codes,

in this case the list of CSFs. Next, we present part

of the full matrix of CSFs versus ASAP processes

built for the first phase of ASAP, the project

preparation phase.

ICEIS 2004 - DATABASES AND INFORMATION SYSTEMS INTEGRATION

Table 1: Example of the matrix CSFs versus ASAP processes for project preparation phase

CSFs in

ERP implementations

ASAP

Processes

Sustained management support

Effective organizational change management

Good project scope management

Adequate project team composition

Comprehensive business process redesign

User involvement and participation

Adequate project sponsor role

Adequate project manager role

Trust between partners

Dedicated staff and consultants

Strong communication

Formalize project plan/schedule

Adequate training program

Preventive trouble shooting

Usage of appropriate consultants

Empower decision makers

Adequate ERP implementation strategy

Avoid customization

Adequate ERP version

Adequate infrastructure and interfaces

Adequate legacy systems knowledge

Project Kickoff

Kickoff Meeting

Prepare for kickoff meeting

Conduct kickoff meeting

1 1 1

Company wide project introduction

1 1

Project team standards meeting

Prepare for standard meeting

Conduct standard meeting

1 1

Quality Check

Perform quality check and approval

Conduct quality check

Signoff project preparation phase

1 1

Number of CSFs occurrences 2 17

133

4.2 CSFs Relevance

Table 2 represents the CSFs relevance for each CSF

in each implementation phase. The values were

calculated in the following way. We have built a

matrix of CSFs versus ASAP processes such as the

one in table 1 for each implementation phase, and

for each CSF we sum the number of occurrences of

that CSF. For instance, the sum of 2 in the CSF

Sustained Management Support means that we

defined 2 relationships between this CSF and 2

ASAP tasks. Then, we converted the number of

occurrences (raw scores) into a normative scale of

ten scores. In a scale of this kind, results from 1-3

are considered irrelevant, from 4-7 normal

relevance, and 8-10 they are considered of high

relevance. In our case, we see that almost all the

factors are higher than 4. Thus, their relevance is

normal or high in most cases. We do not pretend to

say that a CSF with a low summation it is not

important; what we say is that it is less relevant in

that period of the project. CSFs have all the same

importance. Therefore, all of them should be

carefully respected and analyzed.

One of the main results from table 2 is that

organizational CSFs have more relevance along the

ERP implementation phases than technological ones.

Once again, there is the need to focus more on

people and process than on technology itself. This is

not new, and other studies have proved the same

aspect in other types of IS implementation projects.

This aspect is very important since as Felix and

Harrison (1984) quoted, “technical problems can

usually be detected and repaired before the system is

put in jeopardy. The cost may be high in terms of

either budget or schedule, but the repair can be

made. Organizational and personnel problems often

cannot be redressed, and continue to jeopardize the

success of the system itself”.

ORGANIZATIONAL AND TECHNOLOGICAL CRITICAL SUCCESS FACTORS BEHAVIOR ALONG THE ERP

IMPLEMENTATION PHASES

SAP Implementation phases

Perspectives Critical Success Factors

1 2 3 4 5

Sustained management support 8 6 5 5 8

Effective organizational change management 6 9 5 5 6

Good project scope management 5 3 4 4 4

Adequate project team composition 4 4 4 4 4

Comprehensive business process redesign 4 7 4 3 4

User involvement and participation 5 9 10 8 6

Adequate project sponsor role 7 6 4 5 7

Adequate project manager role 10 9 9 10 10

Strategic

Trust between partners 6 4 4 4 6

Dedicated staff and consultants 5 5 4 4 6

Strong communication inwards and outwards 7 7 6 8 9

Formalized project plan/schedule 8 7 7 7 7

Adequate training program 5 5 5 7 4

Preventive trouble shooting 4 4 8 8 7

Usage of appropriate consultants 6 9 9 6 4

Organizational

Perspective

Tactical

Empowered decision makers 4 5 4 5 4

Adequate ERP implementation strategy 5 4 4 4 6

Avoid customization 4 4 5 3 4

Strategic

Adequate ERP version 4 3 3 3 4

Adequate infrastructure and interfaces 6 6 7 7 4

Adequate legacy systems knowledge 4 4 4 4 4

Formalized testing plan 4 4 8 6 4

Technological

Perspective

Tactical

Adequate data migration process 4 4 5 6 4

Table 2: CSFs relevance alon

the SAP im

lementation

hases.

Next, we describe each CSF relevance along the

SAP phases, classified by organizational and

technological perspectives.

4.2.1 Organizational Perspective

Sustained management support is more relevant at

the beginning and at the end of the implementation.

The reason is that at the beginning senior

management should help in the rollout of the project,

analyze the business benefits, define the mission and

scope of the project and provide the resources

needed for the project. At the end, there is the need

to encourage the system usage and help in the

commitment of user involvement.

Effective organizational change management

and business process redesign are more relevant in

the second phase. In this phase the business

blueprint is defined, and the business processes are

analyzed, redesigned (some) and documented. There

is the need to understand how the organization

intends to run its business within the SAP system

and the changes in the organization.

Adequate project team composition has the same

relevance along all the phases since they play an

important part in the whole project. ASAP

methodology does not focus too much on this CSF

since it assumes that the right people were chosen.

Good project scope management is relevant at

the beginning when managers define the scope and

in the last phase because the scope is usually revised

and changed according to the results of the go live

system tests.

Adequate project sponsor role is more relevant at

the beginning when people need to be motivated to

start the project and to obtain the necessary

resources and in the last phase when project sponsor

needs to encourage the use of the system.

Adequate project manager role is relevant in all

phases. It is less relevant in the second and third

phases than in with the others because these phases

are dedicated to business modelling and

configuration tasks and here the role of the project

manager is to guarantee that everything goes

according to the plan.

Trust between partners is relevant at the

beginning when all the stakeholders involved in the

project should share their goals and knowledge and

at the end when they have to analyze and again share

their knowledge to finish the project with success.

User involvement and participation is relevant in

the phases where their know-how is important to

ICEIS 2004 - DATABASES AND INFORMATION SYSTEMS INTEGRATION

achieve a good customization of the system to

organizational needs. They participate in the

definition of business requirements, help in the

analysis of the ERP configuration and in conversion

of data and the testing of the system.

Dedicated staff and consultants is more relevant

in the last phase where there is the need to dedicated

more effort in order to the system go live and also be

available to help users answering their questions and

reduce their doubts about the new system.

Appropriate usage of consultants is relevant

especially in the second and third phases. On the

second phase the knowledge of consultants is

important to improve the business processes, and on

the third phase consultants product knowledge on

the ERP system parameterization.

Empowered decision makers is more relevant in

the second and fourth phases because there is the

need to take quickly decisions related with the

business processes redesign (second phase) and the

adequate customization of ERP system (fourth

phase) in order to accomplish project plan/schedule

on time.

Adequate training program is more relevant in

phase 4 because it is when the training program of

end users starts, but in the previous phases there are

also training concerns related with project team

training and to prepare end user training.

Strong communication inwards and outwards is

more relevant at the first two phases where there is

strong need of communication between senior

management and the project team in the definition of

project plan and scope, and in the last phase where

there is the need of a strong communication with the

whole organization to start the go & live of the SAP

system.

Formalized plan and schedule relevance

decreases during the implementation project. The

reason is that at beginning it is important starting

planning as early as possible. However, along the

project, modifications to accomplish the results

expected.

Preventive troubleshooting is more relevant in

the last three phases, especially in the fourth phase

during which issues arise when the production

system is being tested and old data converted to the

new system.

4.2.2 Technological Perspective

Avoid customization is more relevant in phase 3,

when the SAP system is configured and more than

8.000 tables must be parameterized. The software

configuration should follow the business

requirements defined in the previous phase.

Adequate ERP implementation strategy is more

relevant at the first phase because is in this phase

that the SAP implementation strategy should be

decided.

Adequate ERP version has the same relevance

along all the phases. From the beginning until the

end of the project implementation, SAP recommends

that the project team follows the upgrade of SAP

releases and should consider the adoption of new

ones.

Adequate infrastructure and interfaces is more

relevant in phases 3 and 4, when there is the need to

configure the infrastructure for the production

operation (go live). In these phases are also

configured the interfaces with other systems, and the

creation of reports and forms.

Adequate legacy systems knowledge is less

relevant at the first phase because this phase is

related with the preparation of project

implementation. In phase 3 the need of knowledge

of legacy systems is more relevant in order to

minimize the effort of configuration, to help in

conversion of data and the creation of interfaces.

Formalized testing plan is more relevant in phase

3 and 4 because in these phases the system needs to

be tested after the parameterization process. The test

should include not only functional testing but also

the user’s acceptance testing.

Adequate data migration process is more

relevant in phase 4 because it is in this phase that

data is migrated to the ERP system. The data

migration process may be done using automatic

procedures, or manually, or a mix of both. Finally,

users must certify that they accept the data migration

results.

5 DISCUSSION AND FURTHER

RESEARCH

Based upon the schema presented in table 2, we

analyzed the evolution of organizational and

technological CSFs along the ERP implementation

phases (see table 3). Our findings suggest that while

both organizational and technological perspectives

are essential for a successful ERP implementation

project, their relevance shifts as the project moves

through its lifecycle. Organizational issues are most

important at the beginning, while technological

issues gain in importance towards the middle as

figure 3 shows. The organizational perspective has a

high or normal relevance along the ERP

implementation phases while the technological

perspective starts by low and normal relevance and

gradually increases to normal and high relevance.

ORGANIZATIONAL AND TECHNOLOGICAL CRITICAL SUCCESS FACTORS BEHAVIOR ALONG THE ERP

IMPLEMENTATION PHASES

Perspective

ERP implementation phase Relevance Value

Organizational Technological

Low 5 5

Normal 7 2

Project planning

High 4 0

Low 4 6

Normal 8 1

Business blueprint

High 4 0

Low 7 3

Normal 5 3

Realization

High 4 1

Low 5 4

Normal 7 3

Final preparation

High 4 0

Low 6 6

Normal 7 1

Go Live

High 3 0

Table 3 – CSFs relevance along the SAP implementation phases

Next, we analyze our findings phase by phase:

– Project preparation – In this phase,

organizational factors have more relevance than

technological factors. Adequate project manager

role, sustained management support and

formalized plan/schedule are the most relevant

strategic factors while adequate infrastructure

and interfaces is the most relevant technological

factor. The main reason for these CSFs relevance

is due to the fact that this phase is dedicated

mostly to define and organize the project.

– Business blueprint – Organizational factors are

still the most relevant factors on this phase.

However, organizational factor types change.

Adequate project manager role is the most

relevant in all phases, but sustained management

support relevance decreases, organizational

change, user involvement and participation, and

usage of appropriate consultants arise as the

most relevant organizational factors. Regarding

technological factors, adequate infrastructure and

interfaces is the most relevant one. This phase is

mainly dedicated to the business analysis and

modelling.

– Realization – In general we evidenced that

organizational factors relevance decreases and

technological factors gain relevance. Adequate

project manager role, user involvement and

participation, and usage of appropriate

consultants are still the most relevant

organizational factors, while formalized testing

plan and adequate infrastructure and interfaces

are the most relevant technological factors. This

relevance is according to the fact that in this

phase the ERP system is parameterized.

Therefore most of the technological tasks are

done in this phase.

– Final preparation – Organizational factors

increase a little their relevance while

technological factors decrease their relevance.

Adequate project manager and user involvement

and participation remain the most relevant

organizational factors. Strong communication

inwards and outwards gains relevance in this

phase. Adequate infrastructure and interfaces

stills the highest relevant technological factor.

This phase is dedicated to the system testing and

users training. The final adjustments to the

system are done in this phase.

– Go live & support – Again, organizational

factors still have more relevance on this phase,

while technological factors loose significantly

their relevance. Adequate project manager role

and strong communication inwards and outwards

are the most relevant organizational factors.

Regarding technological factors all have a

normal relevance in this phase. This phase is

dedicated to the system go live. Therefore is

important to communicate and involve everyone

in this process to achieve success.

These findings have implications in the way

organizations should manage their ERP

implementation projects. Some of these implications

are:

– Organizations should consider organizational

factors early in the project lifecycle, during

project preparation and business blueprint and at

the end.

– The transition from organizational to

technological issues must be carefully managed

ICEIS 2004 - DATABASES AND INFORMATION SYSTEMS INTEGRATION

since it means changing the relevance of CSFs.

Therefore, it should exist a careful monitoring of

these new CSFs.

– ERP project monitoring and controlling involves

a dynamic multi-success-factor management

since the most relevant CSFs may change along

the project.

– The adequate project manager role is the most

relevant CSF along all the ERP implementation

phases. Therefore, organizations must put special

attention on the selection, motivation and

retention of this person and try to select the most

adequate person for this role.

– Project managers must have adequate skills for

both dealing with organizational and

technological issues, or at least he/she counts on

other people that support he/she in this shift

along the project.

In this study we used all the CSFs proposed in

the CSFs unified model for ERP implementations

and the ASAP methodology. However, we have

developed a general criticality indicator that can be

applied to any ERP implementation methodology

(see Esteves and Pastor 2001). We are aware that

CSFs vary from implementation to implementation.

However, this does not mean that organizations

should forget the less critical CSFs; Instead,

organizations must still control and monitor them to

minimize projects risks. In fact, the CSFs from the

unified model should all be treated as perceived

project risks. We are now trying to validate these

preliminary findings using the case study method

and interviews with people of various roles that have

been involved in ERP implementation projects. We

also want to analyze the implications of studying

vertical implementation cases such as higher

education ERP implementation projects. Finally, we

also will compare our findings with other studies of

ERP implementation projects in general in order to

identify similarities and discrepancies that may help

improve our work.

ACKNWOLEDGEMENTS

This work has been supported by Fundação para a

Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT), Portugal.

REFERENCES

Cooper, R., Zmud, R. 1990. Information Technology

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ORGANIZATIONAL AND TECHNOLOGICAL CRITICAL SUCCESS FACTORS BEHAVIOR ALONG THE ERP

IMPLEMENTATION PHASES