The most successful MIS implementation teams have 3 qualities

The Tharstern experts have many years of experience working on MIS implementation projects, and we see that the most successful MIS implementation teams always have 3 main qualities.  

In this article, we're going to explain what these qualities are and why it's important that your implementation team has them too. 

1.    They have a leader

Appointing someone to lead your MIS implementation team is absolutely critical if you want your project to succeed. The leader doesn’t need to be an expert in MIS, but the best ones are:

• An Executor – This is someone who understands the needs of the business and has the desire and ability to get the job done. MIS implementations aren’t plug-and-play and without an Executor leading the project, it may be prone to problems and delays.
  
  
• Tech savvy – It probably goes without saying that the leader will need to have a grasp of technology. There WILL be technical talk and it’s imperative the leader can absorb this and share it with his team.
  
  
• Given authority – The leader needs to be given sufficient authority within the organization to make the necessary changes required to overcome any barriers to flow in your workflow e.g. making a decision on how certain products will be quoted or how other products will be finished.
  
  
• Enthusiastic - It really helps the project when someone is excited about the results and what opportunities the new MIS will present for the business. From our experience, the project has the best chance of being successful if the leader is passionate, fully-invested and focused.

2.   They communicate well and often

The flow of communication needs to be constant throughout the process. You need to keep communication channels open with 3 main groups:

• The implementation team – Consider a communication tool like Slack or Microsoft Teams to provide a forum for everyone to keep each other in the loop.
  
  
• The rest of the business – An MIS implementation involves everyone in the company, so find a way to keep all members of staff updated with the progress of the implementation. The best example we’ve encountered of doing this was with a customer whose marketing department produced a monthly MIS newsletter that updated the whole company on:
  • Progress so far against project timescale
  • What the MIS implementation team members were currently working on
  • Key wins and good news stories
  • And, crucially, it also reminded everyone of the reasons for the project, and the opportunities it would present for the company and for the staff.
    
    
• Your MIS partner – It’s imperative that you keep in contact with your MIS Account Manager and Training Consultant so they know whether or not you are on schedule with the tasks they have set you.

3.   They are good planners

Your MIS partner will work with you to produce a project timeline and map out key milestones that need to be achieved to hit your chosen go-live date. They will also help you identify the various tasks that need to be carried out to hit the milestones, and help you assign the most relevant team members to these tasks.

But once your Training Consultant and Account Manager have left the building, your team need to make all this happen. Crucially, they need to make sure that:

• The right people are available for the allocated training days – You’d be surprised how many times we’ve seen customers pay for training days and then waste their money because their team doesn’t have time to take part in the training.
  
  
• Everyone completes their tasks by the assigned date – An obvious one, but the most successful implementations almost always manage to achieve this.
  
  
• Let your MIS partner know immediately if they’re running behind schedule - They will have to schedule their own resource far in advance, and may be unable to change the date of a project meeting at the last minute, for example. Having to wait another few weeks to arrange a meeting will obviously affect your go-live date.

To summarize…

If you want to have a successful MIS implementation project, you need to choose a great leader for the project team, one who will push the project forward, make sure everyone carries out their assigned tasks in time, and communicates the story of the project (the WHY) to the rest of the company.