The last part of this Blog series explores questions of Training and Testing. I bet you don’t want to overlook these when planning for your ERP transformation readiness. If you’ve been keeping up on this blog series, are wrapping up the discussion following ownership and business requirements, and project communication – all important aspects of an ERP transformation’s success.

Training

Training is critical for making sure your end-users are confident and content while using a “new system”. Properly planned and designed training can really change the “outlook” of your project in the eyes of end-users and (hence) key stakeholders.

Some key tips:

  1. Train on every aspect of “new” system: User experience/UI/Look-and-feel, Daily procedures, Data uploads/exports, Reporting/Analytics/Inquiries/Running Dashboards, Periodic procedures including monthly and “yearly” performed activities, any other areas where your users feel they need to be trained.
  2. Train with specific, shorter/concise, and ideally customized guides which are tailored to the User’s roles and responsibilities.
  3. Record your Training and publish those trainings on your collaboration platforms. This helps with keeping processes “properly documented” and “being efficient” as well. It helps to avoid scheduling those expensive pieces of training time and again.

Testing

This is a critical question to ask if your ERP transformation involves any/all following:

  1. Integrations to/from other systems
  2. Customizations
  3. Complex and high number of business processes
  4. Standard plug-ins /Third party ISVs etc

Testing is the best opportunity to let your end-users get their hands dirty with a “new” system and test and validate every possible scenario including Daily procedures, Periodic processes, Reports/Analytics, Data uploads/exports, Integrations, Customizations, Security… (the list goes on)

Carefully plan your readiness with the Testing phase with (a) Test Plans (b) Test Cases/Scripts.

Your Test Plans should be a high-level planning document of your Testing phase and Test Cases/Scripts should be really detailed steps relating to various business processes and sub-processes (part of your scope).

When you actually perform testing follow proper Test results logging, Reporting, and Triaging mechanisms and protocols. There are a number of tools in the market to help with these activities.

Conclusion

It is critical to plan and evaluate readiness for your ERP Transformation based on aspects covered above by asking a simple question: Do we have plans to make sure we are ready for all the above-discussed foundational pillars for ERP Transformation? What risks do we have when it comes to these pillars? Most importantly how best can mitigate those risks and believe me evaluating your ERP Transformation Readiness itself in a structured and defined way will help you kick off your transformation in the smoothest possible way any difficult journey should be embarked on. ERP Transformations can get pretty tricky, tiring, and expensive, plan the readiness and journey carefully to make sure your best outcomes, achievements of business objectives, and best ROI from your ERP.

Have any questions about training and testing? Please don’t hesitate to Contact Us and feel free to connect on LinkedIn and Twitter!

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