Building a common understanding of critical success factors for an ERP project implementation

This paper reports on a novel approach to Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) project implementation and introduces the use of a sense-making workshop to facilitate an improved shared understanding of the Critical Success Factors (CSFs) for the implementation of such an IT innovation. The sense-making workshop strives to overcome hindering knowledge barriers by raising stakeholder awareness through the development of a logically minimal Boolean expression (truth function) which promotes discussion and a shared understanding as to the project preparations required for the successful implementation of an ERP package in an organisational context. The design of the sense-making workshop requires participants to use a set of CSFs for ERP project implementation and a simple scenario in order to retrospectively make sense of the actions taken during the ERP project (represented in the scenario) and therefore represent their individual understanding as a truth function. A process of Boolean minimisation is then used (facilitated through the construction of a truth table and a prime implicant chart) to achieve logically maximum parsimony in the form of a logically minimal Boolean expression (truth function) which is representative of the workshop participants' shared understanding of the CSFs at play in the scenario.