tailieunhanh - Agile Project Management Methods for ERP: How to Apply Agile Processes to Complex COTS Projects and Live to Tell About It

This initial stage of the project also provides the project manager with opportunities to get to know the team and help them get to know each other. The time-honored kick-off group lunch can be combined with techniques often using in training sessions such as sharing personal and professional information with a colleague who then makes the group introduction. In addition, the project manager should ensure that the physical workspace is arranged in a way that facilitates collaborative activities such as pair programming and team problem solving. Ideally, the team should be located in an open space. | In Extreme Programming and Agile Methods XP Agile Universe 2002 pp. 70-88 Springer Verlag LNCS 2418 Editors Don Wells and Laurie Williams. Agile Project Management Methods for ERP How to Apply Agile Processes to Complex COTS Projects and Live to Tell About It Glen B. Alleman Niwot Ridge Consulting Niwot Colorado 80503 galleman@ Abstract The selection procurement and deployment of an Enterprise Resource Planning ERP system is fraught with risk in exchange for significant business and financial rewards 26 . In many cases the packaged ERP product does not provide the entire solution for the business process. These gaps can be closed with third party products or by customizing existing products. Management of this customization as well as the selection of the core ERP system has traditionally been addressed through high-ceremony science-based project management methods 13 . Well-publicized failures using this approach creates the need for new methods for managing ERP projects 11 . This compendium paper describes an alternative to the traditional high-ceremony IT projects management methods. Although many of the methods described are not new assembling them into a single location and focusing on a single issue provides the tools to make decisions in the presence of uncertainty focus on the critical success factors and address the managerial and human side of project management Agility allows the project management methods as well as the system to be adaptively tailored to the business needs. 1. Introduction Using accepted standards for doing business significantly reduces the coordination efforts between business partners as well as internal information and workflow processes 46 . ERP provides the means to coordinate and manage this information by integrating enterprise information and business processes. Managing an ERP project is not the same as managing a large scale IT project. IT projects emphasize requirements elicitation detailed planning execution