There are several critical success factors to consider when managing programs for Oracle E-Business Suite upgrades or implementations, including:
- Leadership: Your leadership team must be committed to sponsoring the program and agree to an adequate level of planning, management and ongoing attention. The issues encountered by the program must be identified and resolved early in the project lifecycle to avoid an unwanted increase in scope.
- Prioritization: Early identification and prioritization of critical, program-wide processes and standards are the foundation for the program infrastructure.
- Boundaries: Clear boundaries and rules of engagement governing all aspects of the program must be specifically identified and documented.
- Change Management: Employing a sound Change Management process for technology change leads to overall program success and minimizes project stabilization periods.
- Focus Area Teams: These teams ensure that solutions are balanced across the organization by representing key business and geographical regions. They approach the program via process flows and cross-functional perspectives to ensure business process optimization, and ultimately user adoption.
- Empowerment: Project teams and decision trees must be clearly identified to empower team members to make decisions affecting cross-functional business streams. Who has the ultimate authority to define future business processes?
- Ownership: Collaboration between your IT organization and your business stakeholders is crucial. Functional business owners must participatie in Program Management project teams.
- Shared Knowledge: At the onset of the project, the project team must be educated on current processes and system functionality to ensure their ability to make strategic and insightful decisions during the implementation or upgrade lifecycle.
- Issue Resolution: A program-wide issue resolution infrastructure and set of procedures empowers all team members to make decisions and resolve conflicts in a timely manner.
