D365 Distressed Project

A D365 destressed project exhibits plenty of warning signs if you know what to look for, experienced ERP project managers and consultancies will quickly spot these indicators and know what remedial action needs be taken to bring a project back on track.

For users implementing ERP it may be less obvious until the finance department note the delta occurring between the D365 project budget and the actual spend.

Red flags can present a challenge to spot if you don’t know what to look for and users with limited ERP implementation experience should not feel embarrassed to call in expert implementation support when things appear to be slipping on a D365 project. With ERP replacement cycles typically once a decade, its not surprising to find a lack of experience within an organisation, after all your business is not software implementation – ours however is.

A D365 destressed project key indicator is rapidly increasing cost, one example we observed when called upon to perform an assurance exercise on a large programme of change for a combined police authority, was a significant turnover in consultants.

The client had deemed it an irritation to begin with but as meetings started to get repeated, with different people taking a different approach, resultant rework, even the cost of onboarding new starters (vetting costs were significant and slow), we prompted a detailed analysis that revealed consultancy costs had risen by 50%+ against the original budget. This was not a fault of the clients making and so incurring these additional costs should not have been their problem.

The programme was not been helped by an insistent implementation partner sticking to an agile implementation plan, agile project planning has its place but one downside we have frequently encountered is that you rarely get a baseline project plan against which to measure performance and cost when its purely an agile only approach.

Costs can build up rapidly but can take time to reveal themselves, particularly in the absence of a more structured type of plan. It’s also rarely in the interests of the primary ERP solution provider to point out rising cost as they are generally the beneficiary of them, lets face it they will soon recognise their month on month increase in turnover but may not necessarily want to be so quick to share the reasoning behind it.

This is where AX Software with highly experienced eyes can hit the ground running, prompting remedial action where needed and insisting on a more structured approach to planning which ultimately benefits the user, the D365 project and the transparency with which the project is been run, nobody like surprises especially the ones that cost you more money.

Low Cost Assurance

D365 users can take matters into their own hands, contracting directly with third parties such as AX Software to either manage the project, provide resource or advise on the current state of play. On larger projects that can run into the millions it demonstrates that the team responsible for delivery have taken measures to validate not just what their principle implementation partner is telling them.

Even in it’s most abbreviated form in providing a health check and report, this due diligence should be encouraged on any large scale project. On the scale of D365 implementation costs it would rank quite lowly with the best result been a third party confirmation that the health of the project is good.

You Have Choice

The beauty of Dynamics 365 is that there is choice in the market, if someone or some company is not performing you can take control and bring in the appropriate resource to rectify the situation and continue your project.

Blended D365 Projects are becoming more common place particularly in areas where resources have historically been thin on the ground, manufacturing, human resources, project costing and BI been squeeze points for many implementations.

Call or email us to see what we might be able to do for you.