How Quality Assurance Drives Successful ERP Digital Transformations: Key Strategies and Benefits

Quality Assurance is essential for the success of an ERP implementation. Without it, institutions subject themselves to unnecessary risks. In this article, you will see how quality assurance functions as a protective barrier against setbacks and fosters a culture of proactive problem-solving before these problems take hold.

Let’s dive in.

What is Quality Assurance?

Quality assurance ensures a project's success by acting as an objective risk detection mechanism. Unlike project or program management, quality assurance provides an external perspective on potential risks, functioning like a building inspector to warn of emerging problems. It helps institutions identify and address risks, preventing costly issues at later stages like testing or go-live.

Why Quality Assurance?

Risks are unpredictable and constant throughout projects. Most issues—around 70-80%—stem from non-technical factors like change management, inadequate testing, or governance issues. These underscore the importance of addressing organizational and process-related aspects alongside technology.

Is Quality Assurance Common?

While many organizations aim to mitigate risk, most fail to recognize or address these risks early enough due to inexperience or bias. Often, issues are only realized at go-live, when it’s too late to address them without significant costs, disruption or delays. Early detection through quality assurance saves time, money, and resources.

Common Causes of Project Failures

These are the most common sources for implementation delays, budget overruns, and in some cases, failure, including:

• Organizational Change Management (OCM): Neglecting the people aspect of the transformation. If the team isn’t feeling confident or feeling heard, that needs to be addressed. OCM involves so much from readiness to operate in Workday - job aids, training, communications, and operations documentation.

• Unclear Business Processes: Failing to identify and define processes across all departments thoroughly. A lack of documentation in workflow format as well as written format leads to problems.

• Over Customization: Over-customizing Workday (e.g. created calculated fields instead of using a delivered related business object), instead of maximizing the functionality already delivered or using third-party integrations, often leads to inefficiencies. A common mistake is to have too many steps in Business Processes at the initial go-live.

• Poor Governance: Ineffective project management structures and insufficient executive oversight and accountability. If your project manager does not have multiple Workday go-lives from the product line you’re implementing (e.g. Student), then they just don’t know what they don’t know.

• Unrealistic Expectations: Setting impractical budgets and timelines, leads to frustration especially by the project team. Most timelines miss a stabilization period, which for Workday Student is 2 years after go-live. There needs to be the necessary additional support and not an expectation of “back to normal” immediately after the go-live.

In the end, the root cause often lies in misalignment among the primary stakeholders (implementation partners, executive steering committee, project management team) and unrealistic expectations fueled by vendor and industry biases. These create a distorted perception of simplicity and lead to underprepared projects.

Leveraging Quality Assurance to Avoid ERP Failures

Quality assurance begins at the planning stage and continues through structured checkpoints or ongoing oversight. It involves identifying challenges, risks, and remediation strategies at every phase. Key approaches include:

1. Reviews: Formal deep dives at specific milestones to assess risks.

2. Steady Oversight: Continuous monitoring of project progress to detect risks early.

Quality Assurance Framework Components

Legato Strategic Consulting's quality assurance program assesses an implementation project through the lens of four main areas, Operational Readiness, Quality of Data, Testing Quality and Solution Architecture, and Project Staff Wellness. This covers important topics, such as:

• Procurement and Contracts: Ensuring compliance and alignment between vendor demos and actual deliverables.

• Governance and Strategic Alignment: Establishing clear decision-making structures and aligning goals.

• Business Process Definition: Defining requirements and ensuring traceability.

• Organizational Change Management: Addressing people-related risks.

• Technology Integration: Planning for system interconnectivity, data migration, and architecture.

  
  

Why Independent Quality Assurance

Relying on members of your project team or implementation partner team for quality assurance is problematic due to inherent biases and both have financial incentives to downplay risks.

Any team member contributing to quality assurance, who also has financial ties to Workday® or any ERP vendor, often sugarcoat risks to maintain client confidence and protect revenue streams, which can reach millions of dollars annually. This economic and human dynamic discourages full transparency, making independent quality assurance essential for honest assessments.

Independent consultants bring fresh perspectives, objective insights, and specialized expertise that internal teams may lack. Additionally, they lack the economic dynamic that discourages full transparency. Independent quality assurance provides unbiased assessments that cover all aspects of a transformation, including internal and third-party activities.

Whether you are starting a new ERP project or optimizing an existing one, remember that integrating Quality Assurance can provide numerous benefits. By implementing these strategies, you can steer your project successfully, keeping risks in check and objectives at the forefront.

Take the First Step

Independent quality assurance through Legato Strategic Consulting is affordable and accessible for all organizations. We offer various plans and pricing to meet your unique needs. Reach out to us to brainstorm ways we can support your institution to protect your implementation, minimize risk, and maximize your technology.