Title: Bridging Consultants and User Representatives in ERP Implementation: An Exploratory Study of Knowled
1Bridging Consultants and User Representatives in
ERP Implementation An Exploratory Study of
Knowledge Brokering by User Leaders
- Research-in-Process
- Xuefei (Nancy) Deng
- The Shidler College of Business
- University of Hawaii at Manoa, USA
- xuefei_at_hawaii.edu
- Dec. 9, 2007
- ES-SIG 2nd Enterprise Systems Pre-ICIS 2007
Workshop
2Agenda
- Research Motivation
- Challenges in ERP Requirements analysis and
design phase - Mixed design teams including consultants and
key users - Theoretical Background
- Situated Learning and Knowledge Brokering
- Research method
- On-site observations, interviews project
archives - Qualitative study
- Results
- User leaders and knowledge brokering practices
- Contributing factors to an effective knowledge
brokering practice - Consequence of knowledge brokering practice
- Conclusion
3Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems
- Definition
- Configurable information systems packages that
integrate information and information-based
processes within and across functional areas in
an organization (Kumar and Hillegersberg, 2000). - Many ERP implementations fail, partly due to
- Absence of alignment (Davenport, 1998)
- misfits (Markus and Tanis, 2000).
- Involving the key users in the implementation
project to learn about the misfits - user-consultant mixed team facilitates
consultants learning of business domain (Markus
and Tanis, 2000 Soh et al., 2000). - Users learning of ERP configuration knowledge
from consultants (Robey et al., 2002).
4Different Views on ERP Implementation
- Users view
- The only concern I have is that all the changes
and requirements are not being addressed by the
consultant to have the system work the way we
want it to, but the way they want it to work,
which is not in the best interest of the
project. - --(from interview of a user representative-subjec
t matter expert (SME)) - Consultants view
- The user participants need to think
outside-of-box when providing user requirements.
They need to be forward-thinking. However, this
is difficult for them. - --(from the interview of a consultant)
5Research Focus and Research Questions
- Focus on User Leaders
- A special type of user representatives,
experienced functional managers hired from the
client organization to work full-time for the
project, and to lead the project team. - RQ1 What role does a user leader play in
identifying the misfits in the user-consultants
mixed teams? - RQ2 Does the role evolve during the two phases
(conceptual design vs. functional design) of the
project?
6Research Setting
- A 40,000-employee enterprise
- 4 implementation sites (Hospital A, Hospital B,
University and College) - 4-year, 200 million project starting Dec. 2003.
- 24 teams, 4 modules of SAP R/3
- Research period Requirements Analysis and design
phase - Conceptual Requirements (March September 2004)
- Functional Requirements (October December 2004)
7Theoretical Background Knowledge Brokering and
Situated Learning
- Community of practice, specific social context
for knowledge acquisition (Lave and Wenger, 1991) - Knowledge Brokers experienced members who
participated in multiple communities, well
positioned to facilitate knowledge transfer among
the communities. (Brown and Duguid, 1998) - IT professionals in an organizational setting---
facilitating the flow of knowledge about IT and
business practices across the work unit
boundaries (Pawlowski and Robey, 2004)
8Organization Chart of the ERP Project
9Data Collection and Analysis
- Data sources
- Two functional teams HR/Payroll and Finance
- observations (11 day-long sessions)
- interviews (9)
- archived design documents (40)
- Data analysis (Miles and Huberman, 1994)
- Identified themes and patterns in the data.
- Conducted iteratively between examination of data
and development of theoretical interpretations
10Results
11Result--Knowledge Brokering Practices (1a)
Cross boundary interpreting and translating
- During Conceptual Design High-level Business
Process - (Observation from an HR/Organization Management
session, July 2004) - -- Consultant Nurse is a JOB, and ER nurse is a
position. Object-oriented concept, make JOB
general to reduce maintenance cost, and any
position required will be inherited from JOB. - --User Can you clarify the relationship between
Job and Position? - --Consultant A person fills in a position, 1 to
1 relationship. - --Leader JOB is a general category of
positions, such as Nurse. There are many
positions of Nurse available in Emergency Room.
Each one of them is considered a Position.
12Result -- Knowledge Brokering Practices (1b)
Cross boundary interpreting and translating
- During Functional Design --- Mapping High-Level
Processes to SAP Functions - (Observation from an HR/Benefits session, October
2004) - --- User C Optional nurses only work 20
hours/week, usually on weekends, Friday,
Saturday, and Sunday nights, 8 hour shifts each.
They are temporary in nature, but they enjoy the
full-time benefits rates. - --- Consultant OK, in the matrix, we can put
Full-time Option Nurse, and eligible for
full-time benefits rate. Is that correct? - --- User C It is correct. But I dont know. They
are actually temporary employee, should be moved
from full-time category to temporary category. - --- Leader (to consultant) I think what the user
C is trying to say is, the type of employment and
the type of benefits are two distinct categories,
but there is an established linkage between them,
such as temporary employment (such as Option
Nurse) is linked to full-time benefits.
13Result -- Knowledge Brokering Practices (2a)
Challenge Users Assumptions
- During Conceptual Design High-level Business
Process - To help user reps see more opportunities for
business process improvement, user leaders
deliberately asked user reps why questions. - Example discussing employee benefits, and the
unique treatment for a sub-group of employees - (observation from a HR/benefit session, July
2004) - Leader Why are they (weekend optional nurses)
treated differently? - User Driven by staffing issues. They got more
money. - Leader How large is the population?
- User 1000-2000 people. We like to simplify the
weekend nurse category.
14Result -- Knowledge Brokering Practices (2b)
Challenge Consultants Assumptions
- During Functional Design Mapping High-Level
Processes to SAP Functions - Example User leaders deliberately asked
consultants how questions to bring up a
missing report element in SAP. - (observation from a HR/benefit session, October
2004) - --- Leader How would the system know that it is
same sex domestic partner and their child? - --- Consultant There is a parking issue here. To
what extent is document required for enrollment
to prove eligibility? - --- User C Spouse and domestic partner have
different taxation impact. The premium for
domestic partner is post-tax. We should keep them
separate.
15Result Factors Contributing to an effective
knowledge brokering practice (1) Credibility of
the knowledge broker
- (from interview of a consultant)
- We have domain experts in the team (e.g. John
with 15 years at one organization, and Mary with
30 years at another) they have the experience
and same background with the user participants,
who can comfortably relate to. - (from observation of a user group meeting)
- User representatives in the finance/Internal
costing session trusted the expertise of the user
leader, and invited her to their user group
meeting.
16Result Factors Contributing to an effective
knowledge brokering practice (2) Pressure on
the knowledge broker
- (from interview of a user leader)
- I want to make sure that they (user reps) know
what the consultants are saying. For example,
infotype is the SAP terminology, but user reps
may interpret it differently from consultants.
My job is to make sure that consultants use
common terms in explaining SAP system, and for me
to interpret the organizational business
processes to the consultants. - One challenges is that I dont know SAP as I
hope to know.
17Result Factors Contributing to an effective
knowledge brokering practice (3) Team Stability
- Client organization entered agreement with the
consulting company on consultant stability. - (from interview of a user leader)
- The turnover of the consultants resulted in the
loss of that organizational knowledge. It is
unfortunate that we experienced this turnover of
consultants.
18Result Consequences of Knowledge Brokering
- 1. Facilitated knowledge transfer between
consultants and user representatives. - E.g., discussion on the internal costing and the
primary vs. secondary cost centers. - 2. Facilitated knowledge creation and improved
business processes. - E.g., dropped the category of divorced spouse
and added court-ordered dependents for benefits
plans - 3. Became an invaluable organization memory for
ERP implementation knowledge
19Implications
- An effective knowledge brokering practice
benefits from the knowledge brokers user
leaders expertise in business functions and
confidence in ERP knowledge - Consultants sharing knowledge and perspectives
with the user leaders. - Project management exposing the user leaders to
ERP training earlier - Achieving a shared understanding about the
business processes and requirements details is
important for the team design quality - Promote activities to understand the nature of
team, task and rules governing team-member
behavior (Klimoski and Mohammed, 1994). - User Leaders impact beyond the implementation
- Become the real boundary spanners with their
acquired ERP knowledge (Levina and Vasst, 2005) . - Better maintain the ERP systems (Ko et al., 2005)
- Organizational personnel retention policies.
20Contribution, Limitation and Future Work
- Contributions
- provides insights into managing misfit and
misalignment in ERP projects. - Extending the results to knowledge work teams
drawing cross-boundary expertise - Limitation
- The generalizability of the findings likely to be
constrained by the geographic location and
organization structure - Future Work
- How to enhance/measure shared understanding
between users and consultants in this mixed team
setting.
21- Questions and Comments?
- Thank You.
- Xuefei (Nancy) Deng
- The Shidler College of Business
- University of Hawaii at Manoa, USA
- xuefei_at_hawaii.edu