How to Eat an Elephant

Just over 2 years ago, I had a very aggressive client project manager inform me that his organization was going to go live with a new ATS, onboarding application, an HRMS solution, and several interfaces flying between all systems by January 1st.  The only problem with this schedule was that it was early October when he made these plans.  As a project team at Emerald Software, we tried our best to convince the client that it was just not feasible to take on such an aggressive timeline for a project of that complexity.  However, inflexibility prevailed and we embarked upon the near impossible task of gathering specifications, creating a Statement of Work, and learning about the new system configuration that was non-existent for both the ATS and HRMS.  Our client missed several deadlines on this schedule but somehow still expected us to work a miracle.  To make a long story short, this project manager was soon dismissed by the company and 2 years later, they still haven’t completed the project.

This example should be a lesson to all HR Project Managers: set realistic goals and be open to a phased approach.  There are several reasons this approach is best but first and foremost, clients should listen to their consultant and ask them what they deem as a reasonable schedule of implementation.  If you have a good consultant, most of them have been in the trenches for many years and can speak from experience.  By trimming the scope of a project, an aggressive schedule becomes more realistic and most team members on both sides of the aisle should have buy-in.  By going live with a reduced scope, there is certainly an ROI to be gained, albeit not as much as a completed project but certainly better than nothing.  Team members will have an opportunity to learn the new system prior to implementing additional functionality in future phases of the project.  And, last but not least, you will most definitely get a win with your executive team by meeting a reasonable deadline.  How do you eat an elephant?  One bite at a time…