Achieving success in large projects: Implications from a study of ERP implementations

Executives in charge of large projects must decide how to spend their energies, even though typically they are not trained to manage such projects. We have derived two implications for managers based on prior research: adhere to the fundamentals of project management and unearth the best practices for large-project success. Through a study of more than 70 enterprise-resource-planning (ERP) projects, we have investigated our hypothesis that greater success in implementation is related to greater adoption of the best practices. For most of the participants in our study, our hypothesized model holds. For some, however, careful deviation from this model also proved successful. Additional implications we have derived include recommendations to specify a model of the project outcomes, understand the factors that make a project large and risky, and include a focus on managing large projects in executive education and development.