Eyes-Are-Bigger-Than-My-StomachWhat is it about Enterprise Project Management system deployments that make them seem like an appetizer rather than a big meal?

Just like people who look at the menu when they’re very hungry and order the soup, the salad, the big steak with fries and then throw caution to the wind to pre-order a huge piece of pie, I often encounter senior managers who are struggling with an EPM system deployment that has turned out much bigger than they’d ever expected.

When you boil it down, the chief cause is often embarrassing to who is inevitably the most experienced project management person in the organization; this chief cause if is often a failure to plan.  Those who had coolly scoped the project and determined just how far advanced the organization was towards the perceived solution, they’d have probably backed up to regroup. 

Unfortunately that’s not always so. 

Even project management systems need some project management when they’re deployed.  Measure twice and cut once is advice given to carpenters but it could just as easily apply to project managers starting an EPM systems deployment.