Building Your Project Team: Don’t Forget Jane

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Over the years, one implementation lesson has come up time and time again: organisations often spend months procuring and configuring a new finance system only to discover that, after go-live, an important process hasn’t been considered because the person who actually performs it was never involved. 

As a result, organisations are left with a brand-new system that doesn’t fully support the way they work. The simple answer: involve the people who use those processes every day. Here’s how overlooking someone, in this case, Jane, can affect an implementation project, and how to avoid making the same mistake. 

Realising you’ve forgotten Jane 

The day has come. You find yourself standing in front of your team, your CFO, and stakeholders. You announce: “We are live on our new financial system. Well done, everybody.” 

There is polite applause and a sense of achievement; the project is complete. As your colleagues filter out of the room, ready to start their daily tasks, one of them, Jane, asks you quietly, “How do we run today’s supplier payments?” 

You begin to answer her – and stop. You realise you can’t answer. You think back to the project, the workshops. Was this even discussed? It then hits you. 

Jane wasn’t involved. The person who runs the payment process, who understands how it works in practice, wasn’t even in the room. 

What are the consequences of forgetting key stakeholders? 

The room empties and you, the project leader who is accountable for the implementation of your new finance system, stand alone with your thoughts: 

• You haven’t included the full team. 
• You haven’t involved those who perform the process. 
• You kept the project to a small group. 

In most organisations, the knowledge required to make a system function daily sits with those who are closest to the process. They may not be the loudest people in the room or attend every workshop, but they understand the details. 

When these people are not involved, it’s the practical details that get overlooked. Those details rarely appear in project plans, but they make all the difference once a system goes live. 

In many projects, involvement is mistaken for representation. It’s easy to assume one finance manager can represent an entire team. In reality, every role has small but important differences. For example, the person who approves the invoices experiences the system differently from the person processing payments. 

Another consequence is that the sequence of day-to-day processes can easily be forgotten. Processes are rarely as neat as they appear on a slide deck. They are built from small, practical steps that rarely appear in high-level discussions. For example: 

• The way that exceptions are handled. 
• The workarounds that exist, and for what reason. 
• The sequencing of payment runs, approval workflows, expense claims, recurring journals, and month-end tasks that only become obvious when you perform them. 

These details only come from the people who do the work, who understand how processes link together to become significant accounting workflows. 

This rarely comes from negligence. The irony is that, in this scenario, Jane may have already asked the question. Many times. The answer she got was, “Oh yes, I’ll pick that up for you with the consultant, you’re so busy at the moment.” 

How to avoid leaving key people out of conversations? 

A good implementation approach is to draw out these processes and identify who is responsible for them. Two hours of Jane’s time in a workshop could have prevented this current position. This was an avoidable oversight. In well-run projects, this risk would be defined early. 

Workshops should surface these questions, and the details should be challenged. But even with the right structure, this only works if the right people are present to answer them. The consequences can become apparent from day one. 

Projects succeed where the right people are involved.  Not just the decision-makers or the project team, but the people who do the work. If they are missing, the system will still go live, but that doesn’t mean it will work in the way you want it to. If you include Jane, it almost certainly will. 

Seven questions to ask before your next workshop? 

Before your next workshop, ask yourself one simple question: Who actually performs this process every day? If that person isn’t in the room, it’s worth making space for them. 

If you have space for other discussions before your next workshop, here are seven helpful questions to get you started:  

1. Who performs this task every day? 
2. Who approves it? 
3. Who deals with exceptions? 
4. Who covers annual leave? 
5. Have we tested the workflow with the people who will actually use it? 
6. Have we listened to their feedback and adjusted the workflow accordingly?
7. Have we documented every step? 

Involving the right people isn’t about inviting everyone to every meeting. Realistically, the right people are those with daily process understanding and those with operational oversight. Combining these two viewpoints ensures each process is well-considered and configured correctly. 

If you’re planning a finance system implementation, our consultants can help ensure the right people are involved from day one. Get in touch with us today.