It's Deja vu all over again

[with apologies to Yogi Berra]

When I read the discussions about the challenges of deriving business benefits from Social Business initiatives I am reminded of some of the root causes of failures with ERP initiatives in the past:

• Lack of Executive Management Engagement / Accountability for Project Success
• Unclear Vision and Objectives (Inadequate Business Case)
• Inadequate or Wrong Resources Assigned to the Program
• Weak Program Governance and Project Management
• Failure to Understand or Commit to Data Quality
• Inadequate Process Development / Redesign
• Inadequate Organizational Change and Risk Management Programs
• Competing or Conflicting Business Priorities
• Inadequate Education / Training Programs
• Technology-driven focus with minimal business involvement

As my colleague Mike Gallagher has reminded clients in Executive Education sessions, "People, not Software Solutions, are the Key to Success".

I realize that implementing ERP is not the same as implementing Social Business. The former is formal, structured and hierarchical and the latter is informal, relatively unstructured and networked. I believe that the lessons learned apply nonetheless.

Are you ready to do things differently?