Last week, a prospect asked me about the methodology that is normally used to implement NetSuite. With everyone nowadays talking about Agile, Sprints, and Releases, he didn’t see how those concepts would align with his company’s objective of being able to run their business effectively through NetSuite from day one.

And I completely understand his doubts.

You’d hear about the concept of Release mostly in the App or software development world, but rarely in ERP implementations.

And without going into too much detail, I’d say there should be more thought put into methodologies that involve project implementation before immediately choosing to implement Agile or stick to the more traditional Waterfall model.

But when it comes to ERP implementations, there is one thing you simply CANNOT skip over: DEFINING YOUR IMPLEMENTATION METHODOLOGY!!!

But guess what?

You don’t have to chose and stick to one specific methodology. You can mix them up to build the optimal approach for your implementation. Agile is now the most prominent methodology in the software world, but this doesn’t mean it’s the perfect fit for all types of IT projects.

ERP implementation is THE MOST CRITICAL IT transformation for an organization, and the bigger the organization, the greater risk of failure.

Unlike traditional Software development, the customers may not grant you multiple chances to get it right. A little bug in an interface, an hour of system failure can result in millions of dollars lost in revenue, so think twice before fully committing to Agile!

True consultant life story: I remember a mandate I had in a paper mill factory a few years ago. There was an error in the SAP Transportation module setup, which resulted in a mismatch of batch numbers assigned to trucks delivering tons of paper rolls.

Long story short, New York Times was on the other end as the customer, and my client had 5 business days to figure out the issue and solve it. Failure in this task would have likely resulted in the loss of a 5-year, multi-million dollar contract.

My team spent 16 hours a day — including a 12-hour night shift — to find and fix the bug, then manually reprocess hundreds of shipments. Then we spent the next 3 weeks — 12 hours each night — helping the factory workers find the missing rolls and directing the truck lifts to the right trucks.

So when is full Agile Methodology appropriate for a project?

I think we will all agree that in a B2B or large B2C organization, AGILE is NOT ERP friendly, but that doesn’t mean we cannot take inspiration from that concept. The key success driver of my ERP implementations is my ability to mix the Agile and Waterfall concepts together whenever it made sense.

This could be characterized as a hybrid implementation methodology. To describe it in few words, it is the ability to design, prototype, test, deploy and repeat this sequence of events in a short time frame while running a waterfall project.

If you’d like to hear more about my hybrid methodology, I’d be happy to hold a much more detailed discussion with you to see if this concept would make sense in your current or future NetSuite implementation.

Talk to you soon,

Osar