rewind: A look back at GFR in December 2004.

The December 2004 issue of GFR was about technology--which, as we sagely pointed out, "has become an essential component of doing business in the public sector." The point then, as now, was that governments can't afford to spend funds on the wrong technology or fail to get the most out of their existing technology resources. One might have thought we would have figured out this ERP thing in the last 17 years, but not so much, it turns out. It isn't surprising that the reasons for investing in an ERP system are the same--we all see the need for "updating business applications, improving business processes, and providing the information needed to make more informed decisions." The part we might have expected to resolve itself by 2021 is "getting the most out of these expensive and complicated systems" and "identifying some measures to justify your organization's long-term investment in ERP."

The issues governments face in getting the most out of their ERP systems remain familiar. For one, IT is often a bit of a foreign country to the rest of the organization because no one else speaks tech. This leads to a situation where "because of a lack of technical expertise, business managers may take a hands-off approach to business system implementation, viewing this as a technology project and avoiding ownership and involvement until the system is live--just in time to complain about how the system does not meet their particular needs."

Another problem is (still) a lack of specific project goals and...