Why ecm implementations fail

Some them actually deal with technology! A proper ECM system must be implementation time was shortened in order to developed in coordination with the intended user meet a magic budget number. Jim Johnson , Chairman Standish Group After being in the ECM industry for over 10 years, and overseeing hundreds of implementations, we have found that success is typically not based on the technology. According to a study on aiim. However, the mixture of IT and process change creates a unique yy Underestimating the impact on business work environment in which employees, managers, processes and organizational structure and directors need the courage to first admit there yy Improperly trained users are problems with their current process.

When we work with clients to determine their needs, yy Project derailment by internal politics technology is not even discussed until there is a full yy No implementation of adequate governance understanding and buy-in concerning their current processes process state.

Learn more about iDatix solutions, visit: www. WHITE PAPER In short, we cannot stress enough the importance While the monetary loss is a large enough setback of not just selecting a vendor that delivers an in this situation, there are many other intangible elegant software solution, but an organization concerns that also need to be considered: that has the knowledge and ability to assist your yy Concept of why are we doing this again — it company from the very first step.

Unfortunately, as previously mentioned, this is not all that uncommon. The conversion process can type of conversion from an inferior ECM system. It is important that you spend the time to upon the success of the technology, as well as understand what will be migrated and how data the professional services integrating them.

Often, will be validated post conversion. We have seen compromises are made on both, resulting in conversions originally estimated at a couple weeks insufficient technology requirements as well as a end up taking well over a couple months because failure in implementing the process properly. A little bit of research in the company faces a crisis. WHITE PAPER The conversion process is in one way a minor part Conclusion of the overall migration to a new system — the In summary, be sure that you are complete in justification and trust to users is perhaps the most product functionality, being careful to choose the difficult part of the process.

Many of the users right vendor for your requirements and properly have already seen failure once and therefore it evaluating during the initial stages of planning. It takes great software for your needs will understand your project managers and implementation specialists business process fully. From the initial stages, to ensure this transition is as seamless as possible. Lacking in one means an system for a larger organization.

As you can see, by taking a lower cost solution with less professional services and training, the total cost of your original solution is now half a million dollars.

Total views Most business justifications tend to be either too optimistic to be taken seriously, or too generic to be applicable to an organization. Recommendation: Develop specific business justifications with organization-specific data and a defensible heuristic model, showing peer group benchmark data that can be demonstrated to an executive in 10 minutes or less, but with rigor in the back end to be able to support the conclusions.

See Doculabs' white paper for more details. Eventually a system either succeeds or fails based on how it appeals to the user emotionally and whether the user is able to imagine the possibilities of a better world as a result of sustained use of a system.

Since ECM has such a huge platform component to it, many organizations fail to get clarity in how "a day in the life of" a user will be impacted a result of ECM. Recommendation: Build out storyboards or prototypes depicting how a user's life would be materially impacted for the better as a result of using ECM capabilities.

Most organizations don't tend to have a sufficiently comprehensive vision of ECM to be able to determine whether their efforts are a success or a failure. A strategy for information management within an organization is largely absent in most places.

Recommendation: Either develop an ECM strategy, or dust off and refine your existing ECM strategy, especially in light of the rapidly changing landscape of social computing, information governance, and cloud-based computing models. ECM is a mature technology; most ECM suppliers are in their tenth and eleventh major versions of their products. The primary reason for failure is that organizations grossly underestimate the cultural and change management implications related to automating certain business tasks.

People have become accustomed to doing things a certain way, and this sort of change can sometimes have a jarring effect. If not properly positioned, the ECM initiative starts off on the wrong foot and never gets back on track.

Recommendation: Whatever you're budgeting for change management during a roll-out of an ECM project, simply double it. No matter how much you think you've overestimated the effort, trust me when I say you've probably underestimated it by a long shot!

Become a Member. Member Login. Categories Follow Us Subscribe. These so called failures are of three specific types: Failure to Garner Adoption: ECM implementations tend to have lower adoption rates compared to what was initially anticipated more than 50 percent of the time. Instead of getting upset that someone is working around your system, your new knowledge presents you with an opportunity.

You might not be able to alleviate every issue they have, but you can help make things better. Because an ECM is supposed to be a central repository of configuration, anyone working around the system is a small failure.

The key for you as a dedicated employee is to figure out just how pervasive those workarounds are. Use that as an opportunity to get out there and improve your team and your process. Even if you avoid every other red flag on this list, a lack of management buy-in will debilitate any project. This issue can also be the root cause of many of the other red flags on this list too.

A petty manager will run interference for users who are working around systems instead of taking the time to do the right thing. Old wisdom says that a house divided cannot stand; the same is true in business. Your ECM project is going to have a much tougher time if you have to fight other managers within your organization.

If you find yourself fighting other managers, you should be worried about the state of your project. None of these issues are fatal for your project.

Evaluate whether there are things you can change and spend time talking to your users and the leads of other teams. This post was written by Eric Boersma.