Project Governance and Stakeholder Management in IT Change Initiatives

In a live broadcast, AV & Andrew discussed the importance of governance in IT project management, particularly in ERP implementations and digital transformations. They emphasized the need for executive alignment and internal processes to ensure project success. The speakers also highlighted the importance of having a project sponsor and a senior-level escalation point to clear roadblocks. They discussed the need for ongoing governance to manage changes and updates in the system. The AV & Andrew also touched on the role of public-private partnerships in IT governance and the importance of change management in navigating the people aspect of projects. They warned against treating system upgrades as simple updates, stressing the need for comprehensive requirements definition and stakeholder management.

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Transcript

AV (00:26):

Good morning and welcome live to Avero's Stream cast or podcast or whatever you call it. But we're live. It's the Wednesday before Thanksgiving and we are really excited and thankful for everything that's happened this year and is going to happen in the future. So with me today, I have one of my longest serving colleagues and a great friend of mine, Andrew Hayes. Not only that, he is a wizard as far as project management and IT digital transformations and all things ERP implementations go seriously, no better person to oversee and manage your complicated projects. Andrew, welcome to the show, man. Andrew (01:09):

Hey, AV, good morning to our viewers out there. Really happy to be part of the broadcast this morning. I'd like to kick things off if y'all are traveling today, be safe out there and our team wants to wish you and your teams and your families a happy and safe Thanksgiving. AV (01:27):

Yeah, thanks Andrew. And so let's discuss things that are sort of overarching as far as it applies to any large project, right? ERP implementation, digital transformation, IT modernization, call it what you may. You need to have governance in place. You need to have an alignment with the executive team for your clients to make sure that this project will be successful. You can't just say, Hey, Mr. Or Miss Vendor, sell me this thing and tell me when you want to go live and leave it all to the vendor. There's a whole internal process and exercise that's pretty academic and theoretical, right? You've had many models on how to do this, but let's discuss how we do this, right? Because it's not always by the book, but it's always things that work. Andrew (02:18):

Absolutely. AV (02:19):

So in your experience, how important is governance in general? And I know this is one of your favorite topics, so Andrew (02:26):

Yeah. Yeah. It actually starts with that AV. I mean, you're going to need an executive project sponsor to move forward with your charter to secure funding for the project. You're going to need a senior level escalation point. We understand at some point changes might come about, we're going to need somebody who can help assist the PM or the project management organization. With that, you're going to need executive leadership to clear roadblocks. So the first thing that we like to do is identify who's our project sponsor. Is there a central executive point, like a chief technology officer who can speak to kind of the best practices and ultimately the needs of the organization? Is there a CFO involved if we're replacing a financial management supply chain management system, or is there a chief talent officer or a chief HR officer? So what you'll want to do is start there.
(03:39)
Who's your executive sponsorship And then at the functional level, who's the general management team? And what we like to do is we like to meet on a weekly basis with the core team that's going to be comprised of folks from your sponsorship. And we recognize how busy they are. They may not always be able to attend the meetings, but you're going to have the management team and basically the people that have skin in the game That way we're constantly getting input. Our respective team, our project managers like to prepare what we call project status reports, PSRs. And those are going to let the sponsorship and the whole core team know where we're at in our project plan, what activities we had planned for this week, what current project wins we have, what we've got planned for next week. We like to make sure that we're really keeping an eye on our risks. So updates to our risk register and just where are we at in the overall project plan and then where are we at with our budget. AV (04:52):

So you're talking about project specific governance. We also profess in our IT strategic plan that our clients have an ongoing governance plan. Let's talk a little bit about that. What does that mean to you? And when you recommend these things, what are you seeing that makes it a valid recommendation? Andrew (05:12):

So there is a clear distinction there. av, we've got project governance from a project management standpoint, and then we've got overall governance for as an example, their information technology program across the organization. And I think that that's good that you bring that up. There's a recent client that we've worked with. We came out of doing a comprehensive IT modernization plan. It's going to guide your investments over the next five years, but how do they keep track of new investment opportunities that come up? And what we've done for this client AV is we've laid out a specific IT governance committee framework, and that involves setting up a governance committee that's got representation at the managerial level from all functional areas of the organization. We laid out a specific protocol and format that they're going to follow whereby if there's a new investment opportunity, they're going to put together a business case, bring that business case to the IT governance committee. We have a specific evaluation criteria, just like if we were guiding one of our clients through an RFP solicitation. AV (06:33):

But when you say investment, is it the purchase of a hardware stack or you don't want to hold up the purchasing or the actual buying of the thing because they're layering on some bureaucracy what it seems like. So how do you damage there?Andrew (06:50):

And that's another good question. These are actually more sophisticated procurement scenarios for an organization. This would be preparing to replace your financial system or your ERP suite. These are high dollar decisions. And we've run into situations historically where the right hand doesn't know what the left hand is doing. And there's one specific example where the organization did not have governance, and our team got in there to do an IT strategic plan and it was an AHA to the organization that two separate departments were buying two separate systems that serve the same function, and they actually had about $500,000 tied up in these two systems that could have done the same thing. And it was just that there was such a siloed approach to information technology and to making procurement decisions, and they didn't have centralized procurement at that level. So that right there is a textbook example of why governance really adds value and why you want to make sure that you've got representation from stakeholders across the organization just so that you can understand the implications that these IT purchases can have in a situation like that. They may have had half the spend. AV (08:25):

Yeah. So how did it skip the process with that client? I think one of the symptoms or the causes is mistrust in the central IT office. So let's say public works doesn't trust the CIO or CTO, they have the budget, they get it passed, and here we are, they're often negotiating a contract with an asset management system while the enterprise has their own. How we get them out of that situation, Andrew (08:57):

Well, I'll tell you how they got into the situation is they did not trust it. You had an IT organization that was just really out of touch. They were focused just on break fis, just on reactive instead of taking a proactive approach, being visible across the organization and being looked to as a strategic partner to the different departments. And what they did was they skipped a comprehensive requirement gathering exercise that would explore outside of our department what might be some of the other areas that would benefit from an enterprise asset management system. That's exactly what it was. Whereby not only can you manage work orders for, we'll say public works or the utility department, but why not talk to the folks over in Parks and Rec, et cetera and build the system out? That was skipped. So what you ended up happening was to separate work order management systems there. AV (10:10):

So let's take it up a notch. When you encounter competing agendas, like we talk about executive alignment or having somebody, everyone on the same page you have with large scale implementations, let's say for a large school system or a large county, yes, it will run point on the actual scope definement and the RFP process with consultants or not. But if you fail to involve the actual functional areas like hr, finance, public works, asset management, and then you tell 'em, well, this is going to be an implementation that starts next year, we're going to go live in six months, how detrimental is that? Because one, it's surprising to the functional areas. Two, you've not gotten any, received any feedback from them on the requirements or processes and then you have chaos. So I know you've been through something very similar recently, at least with two clients. Yes. Talk to us about how you've handled that and from a standpoint of governance and executive alignment. Andrew (11:20):

Well, again, I mean like we first talked about at the beginning of our show, the importance of having the executive alignment, the support of sponsorship, making sure that you're in tune with the risks because there are things that are going to come up. But the reality is, and we've all been through these types of conversions, and for those of you out there watching, we always like to say if a conversion's done right, it could be the only one in your career. Fortunately, our team here at Avero, this is our day job and this is what we're passionate about and what we do. So I'm in the midst of multiple conversions right now, but you cannot be successful on an ERP related implementation unless you're truly taking a one team approach. AV (12:16):

Good point. Andrew (12:19):

That's why I make a point for our teams to really dig in through onsite presence and get to know the ins and outs of the operations for the departments that we're working in to get to know the personalities and know those individuals because you really are only successful as a team and you always hear me talking about, I want to translate and tell their story. Well, why we're going in there is so that we can find out what are those functional requirements, what are the wishlist items? What are the must have reports for go live? How can we crosswalk the chart of accounts for what they have and what they need and run that up against what the solution provider is recommending as a best practice for the chart. And all of that is only possible through rock solid streamlined communication from the C-level suite, your executive sponsor, all the way down to the accounts payable clerk that's analyzing the invoices and cutting the checks. AV (13:33):

Yeah. Let's take some audience questions now we've got Dennis Anthony from Cochin India. Hi Dennis. Dennis asks, how can you define the importance of an audit before advising clients? I mean, I think audits are, especially with our clients, right? Government clients audits are a thing of that happens. It's like it's the constant reality. There's no good timing for a finance department. There's always audits, there's budgets. So when you get into an implementation situation, one is, and we've said this before, don't just accept the vendors go live date. Because more often than not, they're not taking into account your blackout dates and your audits and your budget seasons. Of course there is never a good time, but you have to take all of that into account when you lay out the overall project plan. So it's important as far as governance is concerned that one department doesn't say yes to a go live. And then the other one is mired and audits and budget season and what have you. So executive alignment governance comes into picture there too.
(14:49)
Dennis Buchanan, I'm Daniel Buchanan says, governance for the win and trust is everything, but how do you build trust? More often than not, we're walking into situations where they're running a 30-year-old system and everyone has their own idea of what modernization looks like. Everyone has an idea of what their department should look like, which is fine, but a lot of times it's taken as a very siloed approach. You're saying, I need a system that can do my stuff better than anyone else's and I'm not going to give any compromise points to another department. If you want to stay within the same product family, how do you deal with that? Andrew? Andrew (15:39):

Here's the thing. I mean, if you're trying to stay within the same product family, and that's fine. You like one system that they already have, there's an opportunity to bring another module from that same suite aav, Hey, we're fine with that. But just because you have an existing relationship with that vendor does not mean that you do not need to go through a comprehensive requirement gathering exercise and really hold the vendor's feet to the fire to make sure that that system can meet those requirements. And I can't tell you how many times I've seen and the vendors are our strategic partners. We're sitting across the table representing the client's interest in managing that project for the client. But the vendor is a strategic partner. I've seen many, many times where they've said, you know what? We've already got the talent module, the human capital module. Why not go ahead and implement financials and then have the integration with the payroll? And let's say that grants has been something that is at the forefront of their operations because they represent the interests of a lot of communities. Well, the sales guy might say, yeah, av, you guys have our HCM suite. This can do everything you need including grants. And then we found out that it doesn't.
(17:11)
So just because you're already doing business with the vendor, that sales guy wants to get that sale. And yes, he's for the most part in tune to what you need, what you need to our audience out here. Don't cut any corners just because you have a relationship with that vendor, make sure that you're going through a comprehensive requirement gathering exercise and take that from the solicitation or bid process into the contracting, into the implementation AV (17:42):

And contract compliance after, right? Yes. This is such an important step that you can't simply skip it even if you're not going to RFP, right? You're using a cooperative contract, you're piggybacking off of someone else's. Therein lies a danger too. What are you buying? Is it apples to apples? Can you just piggyback off of another city's requirements because they're not always the same. Yeah, 80% of the time they are. But it's the unique things that will get you something they negotiated that you don't need. Now you're paying the cost for it. So even if you're not going through an RFP process, we always recommend doing a comprehensive requirements definition. Andrew (18:22):

You bring up a really good point there a lot of times, and I would encourage to our audience members out there, for agencies that have systems that have functionality that you may not be using, there may be stuff that you're getting charged for that you have never even used once. There's a client of ours that we helped them do an audit. This was about four years ago, and we found out that for the last five years, they had had about $40,000 worth of product on an annual basis that they were paying licensing for that they never used. And that right there, 40,000 times five, that's about 200,000. AV (19:11):

Yeah, it's a new ERP system or at least you're one of it.
(19:16)
Audience question, what role do public private partnerships play in the IT governance of local government? That's from Megan Seaton, our colleague. She's not here today. This is kind of going into the, I think overall IT organization and structure. I think public private partnerships are becoming very important and you're seeing this through MSP contracts that local governments or public agencies are releasing. Essentially what that means is you're outsourcing a lot of your IT operation to a managed services provider. Things like backup, cybersecurity, even day-to-day desktop management, help desk management gets outsourced. And it really depends on what your situation or organization is like because that will dictate what your requirements are again, and what you should be expecting from your MSP. And there's at times there's a lot of confusion and who's doing what, right? Am I responsible for the enterprise system that you've had for 20 years or did you just buy help desk services from us? And where does that line get drawn? Because MSP providers are experts at core IT infrastructure, not necessarily your specific manufacturing system that you've had in place for a while. So public private partnerships are showing up as managed services contracts, and I think that's a positive thing in the market in general.
(20:49)
Mackensie says, how do you adapt traditional governance frameworks to fit the unique challenges of IT change initiatives? I think you should take that, Andrew, because it's kind of your background, traditional frameworks. Andrew (21:03):

So you know how passionate I am about change management. That brings up a good point, Avi. I'm actually going through my Prosci Acar change management certification here in two weeks. So I mean as part of my OD studies at Case Western that I've been always talking about change management. So I think that when you bring a traditional governance framework into an organization, you need to recognize that each organization has its own iniquities and what has worked for one organization may not necessarily work for another. And I wouldn't even limit this to governance. I think that it's bigger than that. It's looking at processes for the organization. We can bring in our institutional knowledge as an SME for governance, for best practices for hr, best practices for finance, but you need to really know the pulse of the organization. And just as much as the organization needs to be open to change management and how their workflows may change with new functionality, we also need to be open to adapting best practices to suit the needs of the organization. And again, that goes back to the importance of communication. When we first started the broadcast here, we were talking about making sure that you've solidified relationships at different tiers of the organization and that you've got ongoing communication. AV (22:56):

So we are using a lot of big words. It can be scary. Tell me in practical terms what governance should look like. If you are a chief executive of the agency of any kind, what should you expect from this word governance on a practical basis? Andrew (23:18):

So in terms of a governance framework where you're evaluating new opportunities, you want to understand what are the business requirements in terms of a business case. What is the scope of this? What opportunity is this investment going to address? What problem is this going to resolve? How is it going to impact the organization? What are the resources that are required? Who are the stakeholder groups that will be impacted? What is the cost? And when we say the cost, what is the cost to get it implemented? What is the reoccurring costs on an annual basis so that we can budget not only for the larger expense to get this implemented, but for operations and on an ongoing basis, what does that look like? And when you think about out ERP systems, it might be a one-time cost for the implementation, but everything is going towards software as a service.
(24:33)
So it's almost like it's a utility to where you can either break it up on an annual basis or we recommend structure your payment terms so it's on a quarterly basis, but your CFO or your board, they're going to want to understand that. So when you think about in layman's terms, what are we talking about for governance? That's it. For ongoing governance of the entire technology program. Your CIO is going to want to understand what functional areas are being impacted by the solution. Have we talked to everybody in terms of integrations across departments or we make sure that we're addressing all of that. One of your favorites, cybersecurity, you're going to want to talk about from a cybersecurity standpoint, what are best practices related to this new investment so that we're making sure that we're protecting our network and our end users. AV (25:41):

Alright, audience question. Klay Brooks. Hi Klay. Can a lack of governance reduce the effective lifespan of a major IT update like the implementation of a new ERP? What a great question. I would say yes because governance should be ongoing because here's what happens typically if you're not careful, you're going to go live with a new system that's brand spanking new looks great, everybody loves it. And then you realize three months in that a specific module that's key to the whole process has not been done well. You didn't catch it in training, testing, and now you don't have a framework for requesting changes. The vendor's gone, right? You're live, you're with support and there is no mechanism for asking for those changes because you've signed off on it. So ongoing governance allows you to have those kind of changes and discoveries be run up the chain and there be a post-implementation period where you've negotiated this with the vendor and your consultant that if these things come up, you're going to have a process to bring it to attention and get some changes made. So yeah, to Klay's point, ongoing governance can reduce the impact or lifespan. Andrew (27:02):

AV, I wanted to add to that, and Klay, that's a fantastic question right there. There's going to be ongoing changes within the system and the reality is that a lot of the roles within the IT department are going to change and roles within the respective departments are going to change as well. And you're going to find that your teams aren't necessarily dealing with the hardware and servers like they used to. They're managing that vendor relationship and they're understanding what are the upcoming changes that are coming from the system. So if you are not in tune to what those release notes are that you get from the vendor for changes that are coming at the end of first quarter 2024, you're going to potentially have a problem because the way that your team was trained and learned things back in October, that could completely change with a major update that your ERP vendor is rolling out starting second quarter of next year. So when we think of governance and major, IT updates right there. It's going to be key that we have planned for how we're going to manage the ongoing changes with our software as a service solution that's running our financials. AV (28:39):

And it's a great point that's being made here, the effective lifespan, what does that mean in a SaaS environment? To your point, Andrew, earlier, if you do this right, this should be a once in a career project for you, but if it's not done well, you're going to be in the same spot for the next couple of years again and again. So continuing on the governance path, Andrew, when it comes to implementing a large scale ERP system, how do you resolve differences in the executive team itself? Because it's the most important thing, right? If the executives are not aligned, and when I say executive, it's the directors and above need to be on the same page as far as what's being purchased, how it impacts your organization. And because they're only looking at their functional area, sometimes you can be blindsided by what another area wants. And how do you keep the loudest voice from winning those situations? Andrew (29:45):

Well, I think that there's different styles of communication, there's different ways to manage, I dunno if we want to call these conflicts, but there's going to be some heads bumping and there's going to be competing agendas that the finance department has their perspective on things. And then you've got the HR department and then there's payroll and you've got the CIO and IT that's trying to orchestrate best practices across the board. I think it's a matter of separating the personal agendas, recognizing that we're all team members and there's this third thing, this problem or this opportunity that that's what the real issue is. It's not me versus you on the same team, we're serving the city or the county or the school district, but it's that there's an issue with our software. So what we need to do is come together and attack that issue and make sure that we've got channels of communication open and be committed to collaborating.
(31:11)
And it's not about me having the best idea or you having the best idea, it's about us working as a team towards addressing what the business needs are of the school district or the county or the city and being committed to that. And I mean I guess it's in a way it's us setting our respective individual pride aside for the greater needs of the organization. And I mean over the course of the last 10 years, there's been monstrous projects that I've run where I'm leading a team of a hundred plus people and managing all of those personalities is a lot. But it goes back to at the beginning of the project, how can I spend time with these folks? And in my experience, it's been best spent on site so that I can really get to know the people systems within the organization, know the personalities, make sure we're spending time defining the requirements and understanding what people need.
(32:25)
And then one of our viewers mentioned and the comment there, it said trust equals everything. It absolutely does. There it is. Daniel, thank you that you have to get to the point where I know you well enough that I trust you and I trust your judgment and I know that you are committed to making this ERP project successful because you always hear me talk about how the project ebbs and flows. It's not going to go perfect. There's going to be changes to the project plan. There's going to be something that comes up in finance where there's an audit or there's going to be a pay increase that pulls people from the HR team off of the project. And we always talk about how people are our most prized asset in the organization. Well, these large scale projects av, at the end of the day, it's people working with people and that to speak frankly to your question, that is how you navigate through the challenges that can come up when we're talking about project governance AV (33:41):

And Megan's comment there, these are people projects, not software projects. It really is you need to treat this like you're building a schoolhouse or a stadium or a police station. The same amount of care that you would take with communications and pr, budget management, project management needs to be applied to this. And when it's not applied, that's when you have failed projects. That's when you have cost overruns, that's when you have change orders after change orders and it's justified because you didn't get into this with clarity in your own documentation in mind on what you're after, Andrew (34:19):

There should not be any surprises. And if you're really spending the time with the core team and the sponsorship on a weekly, biweekly, monthly basis, you're really dedicated to watching the risks. There should not be any surprises on your scope, on your budget. AV (34:44):

If there's also a fallacy there, and it's kind of related to governance. When you're upgrading a system, is it just an upgrade or is the vendor selling you a whole new package? Disguised is an upgrade. We've been in a couple of situations now with this transition from Kronos to UKG. And if you're anyone's going through this, please comment because we've had a few clients that were sold this migration as an upgrade. We're just changing stickers, we're not changing products. You know what? It's a whole other implementation and a year in these clients are finding out that the people that were assigned to do the implementation from the vendor side were not quite up to the mark. They didn't understand what was going on. No one read the documentation or the requirements or the notes that the client had provided early on. And that's where governance comes in where you can ask those questions at the beginning, stop the project, ask the vendor these right questions and not be in a situation where you are about to go live and nothing set up. Now you're in this problem area where you have to pull the plug once again on the go live and look bad in front of everybody. You can only blame the vendor so much. Now it starts looking like you're crying wolf. But it happens all the time with that part. Andrew (36:11):

Another situation that we've seen is you've had this software for five or 10 years and you know that the time's going to come where the technology's just antiquated and you need to implement a new system. Well, the vendor that you have just got acquired from one of the bigger firms and they immediately sunset your solution, they cut off the support and it's like if you're not just going to sign on the dotted line for their upgrade, then you don't have any kind of support. So that's an example right there. We've talked about the importance of the requirements just because your existing vendor or the new vendor that acquired the solution that you have, just because they're pitching you an upgrade doesn't mean it's going to be the best thing. You want to make sure that you evaluate it, the software that you evaluate your needs and make the decision that's best. And again, that all comes as part of a governance effort AV (37:33):

Today with a SaaS product that's hosted. Upgrades should be a thing of the, I mean, you should be paying attention to what upgrades they're offering and what's going on, but it's not a whole new implementation. We've seen it happen many times. You're going to sunset. PeopleSoft for example, is sunsetting in 25, I believe. So the easy move is from PeopleSoft, Oracle, HCM or cloud HCM. But is that an upgrade? No, it's a whole other product. So if you have proper governance and stakeholder management, you would run it by the end users, the HR department, the finance department, everybody that's going to use it, your biggest departments to see how this impacts their operations. If you feed it like an upgrade, you're in deep trouble. Andrew (38:25):

Now that brings up another point. Okay, so we know that it's an upgrade or it's a new system and we've defined the requirements and that's great and we're excited. But then it's how are you going to get it implemented because you have your day jobs. I work in procurement at the school district. I have my day job, I have my team that I run and all of a sudden there's this massive project that is going to take 12 months. How am I going to get it done? Well, we've seen, and of course I'm biased because this is our day job and we're professional project managers and I see the value in it, but a lot of times one of the first things that gets cut from the budget is professional project management services or even training services. So to our audience that's watching out there, make sure that you understand as part of the governance process, before you take on one of these projects, make sure you understand exactly what the level of effort is to implement it. If you want to go down the road of attempting to do this internally and make sure that you understand the level of effort required and what your actual bandwidth is. Because being somebody that runs these multi-module, multi-year massive implementations, there are often people AV that executive sponsorship dedicates full-time to the project that they don't have time to do anything related to functional operations within a department AV (40:15):

The day jobs. And also there's also another myth that the vendor's going to supply the project management. No, they're going to project manage their own crew. They're going to manage their own timelines. No one's going to help you unless you have an external PM or someone dedicated in-house to herd your own cats. And that's where the rubber hits the road because there's going to be homework, there's going to be meetings. You have to keep up with your own workload. There'll be different work streams that you have to manage. And you can't hold the vendor, the software vendor responsible for managing your own resources. So therefore you see in a large implementation, you're going to see a technical implementer, you're going to have a PMO contractor, you're going to have different areas. Sometimes OCM is found out to someone else. And all of these areas need to be coordinated by a single PMO audience. Question Kaylee says, when navigating the people of it all and identifying a need for some sort of cultural shift or conflict resolution, how do you maintain your professionalism and credibility with all involved parties that is getting the things done and keeping things moving while ensuring all parties feel seen and heard? I think that's one of our superpowers and there's no one better at this than Andrew. Andrew (41:35):

Yeah, so I mean I'm going to bring change management expertise and an OD background to it. I'm going to have a wealth of experience from having navigated organizations through the choppy waters of all these ERP projects over the years. But I'm also going, and this speaks specifically to the question Kaylee, I'm going to lean on my sponsorship and my management team to help clear those roadblocks. We can put together a training plan, we can put together a change management plan. I can showcase based on best practices why this is going to be the right approach, what the time save is going to be. I can work with the HR team on how some of these roles might change, but I don't have the authority or the ability to make the client organization accept these recommendations. And that right there is where I need to make sure that I have a strategic partnership with my executive sponsorship team.
(42:46)
And you guys have heard me talk about the importance of the team approach overall. If we can find a way to showcase value to where these types of changes make sense to the end user, nobody is going to sell the project to the masses like the end user community will. And I've witnessed the people that were like, no, no, I don't want to do this. And then boom, there's that aha moment where it all makes sense. And then Kaylee, those people that were maybe a bit challenging on the project, they will end up being the salesman that will spread the good news to the end user community and get them engaged. But again, it's a making sure that you've got those relationships in place, that you have your escalation points where things get challenging because definitely there will be a cultural shift specifically on a project like this because for organizations that may have been using the same system for 20 years, those folks may not even have the mental capacity to think or even dream beyond what they're using right now. So this may be something that is just a lot for them to grasp. So you just got to make sure that you keep this project highly visible and try to find the points where you can show that it's going to demonstrate the most value to that end user community. That's how I would handle that. AV (44:35):

And Leonte has a question, I don't know why it's not showing up here, but she says, or comment, she says in-house, PMs usually know the culture better, but that's a true statement. But can you be too close to the culture where you don't have any impact, you're just the in-house PM that everyone's seen for the last 10 years. The upside of having an external PM come in is they're time bound, they're budget bound, things have to get done and then they have to leave, otherwise it's a failure. So that's pros and cons to both. And Klay says, I love how you mentioned commitment to collaboration. That's the why behind the governance policies. You're absolutely right. And I've seen commitment come in many ways. You can have a project charter, formal project charter everybody signs off on, but doesn't mean it. Or you can have true commitment that only shows up through how well the project's going, how people are communicating and collaborating on a daily basis. What's your experience, Andrew? Formal charters versus informal, but real collaboration? Andrew (45:50):

I mean, I think you kind of need both. These projects are high stakes, high dollars, and there definitely has to be documentation. I mean, I want the charter documented. I want to know that the budgets there that ties to the po. I want to make sure for the major deliverables, the system design documents, that all of that is signed off on that we've got real people in positions that are going to be making those decisions. But again, you can have all the documentation, all the bureaucracy that you want, but if you're not walking arm in arm down the field with your team and you're functioning as a team, you're not going to get real things accomplished. And I mean if you think about the stages of group development, you're going to have to go through a significant amount of storming before your team forms and then you'll develop the norms for how your team functions. And I mean, if you don't have a real team, you might as well throw all that documentation out the window because you're not going to get anything done. But you have to spend the time. You've got to spend the time with your team. And it can't be, I'm on a virtual meeting and I'm supposed to be meeting with you, but I'm working on this or working on that. These projects, there's so much work to be done, be done. And you've got to make sure you've got real communication on real issues and real relationships in place. AV (47:38):

It sounds like so much work. It's time consuming, right? When the vendor's going to say, I can go live with you in three months. Andrew (47:46):

No. AV (47:47):

And you're talking, and we've seen this with a housing authority recently, vendor promise three month timeline including data conversions. And in fact, one of them said, we'll do data conversion after go live and we'll train you after go live, but we can go live in three months. That means nothing. So you really have to be careful. It does seem like a lot of work, but trust us, it's going to save you lots of heartache in your positions. Megan says, how can the implementation of ERP digital transformation initiatives influence the recruitment of integration of young professionals and emerging talent in organizations? I think that's huge, right? The workforce wants the tools they're used to in their day-to-day jobs. They want to be able to be mobile, they want to be able to use ai, they want the system to work for them. This hasn't been more true than in the past, what, three to four months even, right? Since Chad g PT came out last year and it's changed our lives. So when you recruit somebody to come in and work on your ERP system that is a green screen, you have to use command keys, and it's not intuitive. Why can't we do this on an iPhone? Is what the question is. And it's a true question, right? I mean, how do you attract talent when you don't have the tools? Andrew (49:14):

Well, we talked about the importance of making sure as you're wrapping up these projects, av, that you understand how roles are going to change in the organization as a result. So you're going to need a team that really understands the capacity of the system and what the implications of this new functionality are going to be on the existing roles within the organization, because it's going to change a lot. There's going to be reports that have taken your team a week to produce that. You don't even need to produce the report anymore because you can just pull that up as part of basic functionality. So right there is 40 hours that we've just gotten back that we can do other things. So you will really need to update the scope of the roles in your job descriptions, and that's going to really attract talent. Folks are going to be very excited when they learn that a school district is committed to having the latest and the greatest tools to manage their financials and their procurement. So that's exciting stuff. AV (50:35):

Absolutely. Well, we're up against time, so we can't take all of your questions, but thank you for joining us today. This has been a very enlightening conversation. Always love talking to you, Andrew. Andrew (50:46):

Absolutely. av, thank you. AV (50:48):

So let's wrap up here and I wish you a great Thanksgiving. Enjoy your Turkey. Andrew (50:54):

Yes, thanks everybody. AV (50:56):

Thank you. Bye. Bye.