Managing ERP after go-live: who owns the system? Oakland County, Michigan, manages ongoing ERP system upkeep and development through a collaborative governance model.

• Author: Kavanagh, Shayne C.
• Position: Best Practices - Enterprise resource planning

After an enterprise resource planning computer system goes live, the government must transition from a project mode of operation to ongoing maintenance and support, where members of the project team begin to refocus on their former job duties and a sustainable long-term strategy for maintaining and optimizing the ERP investment is developed. As part of making this transition, many governments struggle with the question of where in the organization to place "ownership" of the system. In other words, who in the organization will decide what system improvements are made, how maintenance issues are prioritized, and how resources will be dedicated to these and other tasks associated with ongoing ERP system upkeep and development. Many governments wonder if the finance department, the IT department, or perhaps another department is best suited to this role. This article describes how Oakland County, Michigan, resolved this issue by forming an intra-organizational network of the most important stakeholders to make joint decisions on the future of the county's ERP system, without sacrificing accountability for results.

ABOUT OAKLAND COUNTY

Oakland County, Michigan, is located 20 miles north of downtown Detroit and serves a population of about 1.2 million people. In 2007, Oakland County's general fund budget was about $490 million and the total budget for all funds was about $822 million. Oakland County makes extensive use of IT, not only for its own operations but also as the provider of IT services for a number of jurisdictions located within the county's boundaries. Oakland has been recognized for its progressive use of IT and was designated as a top-10 Digital County by the Center for Digital Government.

OAKLAND COUNTY'S ERP BACKGROUND

Oakland County had been using its ERP vendor's human resources and payroll functionality successfully for five years. Based on this experience, it decided to upgrade its HR functionality and implement the vendor's financial and supply chain applications. Oakland took a two-phased approach to this project:

* Phase 1. Human resources upgrade (including some new functionality and self-service applications), time and labor, computer-based training, and user portal.

* Phase 2. Financial management, supply chain management, and budgeting.

Oakland County's approach to ERP project governance was consistent with what is generally recognized as "best practice." The executive committee was composed of department leaders and...