Two roles are often confused in ERP projects: the project manager and the ERP consultant. Both sit in the same meetings and talk about the same system; but one person’s job is for the whole project to reach its goal, and the other’s is for the system to be set up correctly.
The difference under seven headings
| ERP project manager | ERP consultant | |
|---|---|---|
| Focus | The project as a whole: schedule, budget, scope, resources | The system: configuration, fitting processes into it |
| Responsibility | Finishing on time, on budget and within scope | The system being set up correctly and usable |
| Point of view | Broad: business goals, alignment between teams | Deep: module, setting and process detail |
| Communication | Senior management, business units, vendors | Key users and the implementation team |
| Risk | All project risks: delays, budget overruns, scope creep | Technical risks: configuration, data, integration |
| Measure of success | Did the project reach its goals? | Does the system work, and is it used? |
| Scope | Every stage, from planning to after go-live | The area where the system is set up and configured |
Can one person do both?
In small projects they often do, and that is not a mistake in itself. The trouble comes when the two roles pull against each other. The person who says “we can build this configuration” as a consultant may find it hard to say “doing this will push the schedule back two weeks” as project manager. When the person guarding scope is also the one giving the technical answer to a request to widen it, decisions tend to get made without being written down.
If the role cannot be split, the decisions can be: which configuration will be made is recorded in writing with its reason, and someone on the business side approves it.
Which one is needed when?
- Any project where several departments, a vendor and an implementation team work together needs a separate project manager.
- For narrow work, such as adding a module to an existing system or rebuilding one process, a consultant is often enough; someone from the internal team can take on project management.
For our service that runs the project on the company’s side: ERP Project Management.