A few years ago, I was roped into assisting with the state’s transition to a new Enterprise Resource Platform (ERP), updating our ancient web-software backbone to link all our HR and financial information.
Anyone who has helped implement an ERP can attest, it’s a complicated effort — enough that this initiative has been put on hold for a year.
I’m an architect, not an accountant. But as a project manager, I’m now accountant-adjacent. A big part of my job is preparing and moving documents around. As the division’s representative, my goal was to make sure that they didn’t set up the system in a way that make our lives as Project Manager 2’s harder after implementation.
It was an enlightening experience. I’ve always been the Architect-Consultant who is hired to fix a problem. Things shifted a little when I joined the state and became the Owner.
This was the first time that I was just a User.
It’s hard! These consultants swoop in with minimal knowledge of how I do my job. They shove my needs into a their workflow for their brand new, opaque system. They don’t know what I do, and I barely know what they do. In this case, I was doubly ignorant — of both software and accountant-speak. Amidst the confusion, I was keenly aware of the high stakes because we were gonna be stuck with this program for the rest of my career.
I’d like to think I was a reasonably humble architect, but being a User is humbling at a whole other level! I was powerless, just praying that the experts listened to my pleas and followed through on their promises. I appreciate that a new software platform presents opportunities for positive change, but it felt like they were following their own standard playbook without addressing our specific concerns. It didn’t help that as a project manager, I was extra-sensitive to how they were mismanaging the process. It was so frustrating that I lost my temper a few times, once in a large meeting!
Aside from that shameful embarrassment, this effort gave me a chance to build great relationships with our accountants (nothing builds comradery as an uncaring outside force).
And in a moment of inspiration I threw together this diagram showing how the new system will allow to analyze our project finances along multiple dimensions.
I’m inordinately fond of this diagram, maybe because it melds my current work with my old life. I doubt a non-architect would have realized that an axonometric drawing could sell the potential of the new ERP!
