Implementing New Systems - Pitfall 1

While I was doing my research for my doctoral dissertation, I read a lot about universities implementing Peoplesoft or other student information systems (SISs). One of the biggest pitfalls that all the literature had to say was if you aren't willing to change your process or adapt to the system, then the 1000s of dollars that you invest in the new system will be worthless because within a couple of years you have to begin the process all over again.

I think that this is actually useful insight into any project that a school undertakes, whether it is a student information system, a new website, or adopting social media. The biggest problem that organizations or schools encounter is while they want change they are often unwilling to break from their traditions and unwilling to look at their processes. That said the most important part of implementing any system is finding the best of both worlds. It's important not to have a radical change to your process. This means sometimes having the system make customizations to preserve central processes. But it also means that not everything is a central process.

This is challenge often occurs at ending stages of new systems. It is often hard to plan in the beginning stages for these processes because many organizations, schools, or businesses think that their processes are something that everyone does, but this is not usually the case. There are so many processes that often inherit to that specific place of business that it is often hard for organizations to keep up. They try to cater to the normal and often times your school has at least one process that is not normal.

A new system gives your school the opportunity to evaluate your processes. It allows you to ask your school, your users, and the recipents of the program questions. Are you really doing everything the most efficiently? Is there a better way to do things? And how can we work with our new system better?

The one thing to remember is with any system, there are always growing pains.