Otis Elevator Company, headquartered in Farmington, CT, is the world’s largest manufacturer of elevators, escalators, and moving walkways.
A multi-year ERP system rollout had been initiated for more than 100 of the company’s worldwide locations, but early deployments struggled to find a rhythm. Independent assessments revealed that the Project Management Office (PMO) was short-staffed and the deployment methodology was incomplete. Otis asked Abraic to augment its PMO, to improve the effectiveness and completeness of their processes, and to ensure ongoing and subsequent ERP deployments were more successful.
Methodology Improvements & Documentation
First, the Abraic team surveyed PMs and stakeholders from sites where system deployments were complete or still in progress. This exercise generated a prioritized backlog of 50+ opportunities for improvement. Abraic immediately began implementing the improvements, enabling the PM community to take advantage of the optimized methodology.
Certain steps in the deployment process were not explicit enough for PMs to use, particularly those related to critical change management functions. Abraic leveraged the PROSCI change management methodology to fill in the gaps, and enhanced other key areas as well.
For example, in the original deployment playbook, one of the steps simply stated: “create a communication plan.” Lacking templates, guidelines, instructions for identifying the audience and message, adjustments based on site size, and other factors, the PMs were left to their own devices and typically skipped this step. Abraic therefore created a detailed document explaining how to create a communication plan within the context of this particular enterprise-wide implementation.
Deployment Roadmap
Outcomes
PMO augmentation allowed Otis to focus on project governance and support, while Abraic focused on continuous improvements around the methodology. This dynamic led to better documentation of process steps and more effective tools for PMs and project teams to leverage. Major improvements in communication and change management led to stronger adoption of the newly-deployed systems. Ultimately, Otis’s PMO gained the ability to operate more concurrent projects with a more consistent methodology.
Abraic’s recommendations and deliverables are always tailored to the specific needs of a given client. If you’re interested in an assessment of an ongoing system deployment, augmenting your PMO, or improving your internal change management capabilities please contact us.