Super users are superheroes in IFS ERP

See your IFS ERP project as a talent development programme – because it is

Something I’ve seen across all industries, and all sizes of IFS ERP projects, is that the role of super users is overlooked. People get very excited about the potential of IFS and the new capabilities the business will have. IFS ERP implementations are big capital projects, so often the focus is on cost and on getting to live as quickly as possible to minimise that cost. 

For me, one of the first things you should focus on post-sale is who you are going to involve from each team. These people will design the way their department works on the new IFS ERP system. They are going to be busy, they are going to be stressed. You’re putting them on a career development fast track, where they’ll get three years’ experience in 18 months. IFS projects make or break people. 

 

“Someone has cried on every project I’ve been on because they were put into the super user role without a real understanding of what it involved. They’ve been placed under enormous stress, and it’s broken them.

“But there are people who thrive. They’re stressed, but they thrive. And they go on to do bigger and better things in the company because they’ve developed system expertise. They become invaluable to the business.”

 

Choosing the right person for the super user role

You’re looking for an ambitious, capable person who wants to progress, a future leader. They will have a sound understanding of the ‘as is’ processes in their department. They will have spotted inefficiencies and risks in current ways of working, and will already have ideas about how processes could be improved. 

You need someone who is skilled, or has the potential to learn skills, in:

• Influencing and negotiating

Your super user will be working with the tech team and functional consultants to design the new processes. Then they need to go back to the department and sell it to their line manager. There will be push back. Change is scary. People will be worried about their workload increasing, or even becoming redundant because their tasks are being automated. IFS ERP projects involve a massive change-management piece, and your super users are on the front line. 

• Decision-making

Decisions about processes, data, permissions, and everything else will be a significant cognitive load. There will be customisations to the IFS ERP system, known as CRIMs. It’s not unusual for the super user to write the spec. Even if the consultant writes it for them, the super user still needs to test it and sign it off. There will be a thousand decisions to make like this, because they are the person who knows what is right and what works for the business. 

• Communication

The super user will speak for their department in meetings, help to write specs and to document ‘to be’ processes. These documents will turn into the training materials they share with their team. 

And when you reach the go-live event, it’s huge. Everyone suddenly has a brand new system. They will pull on their training and lean on their super user. 

• Motivating themselves and others

When the going gets tough and it will get tough, your super user will need to dig deep to keep themselves and other people going. IFS ERP offers huge benefits to business, but in the rush to go live people can lose sight of why they’re doing it. 

Super users who can stick to their guns, drive through the benefits to the business and help everyone through hypercare even when they’re tired, even when they’re exhausted, they are heroes. 

There will be bun fights

Super users can often find themselves in the firing line over output documents. They are your customer-facing documents like invoices and internal reports. IFS includes standard output documents, and disagreements frequently arise over attempts to adopt standardisation. The business will often decide to tailor these to suit individual customers, because there’s an assumption the customer won’t be happy with the change. Sometimes a conversation is all that’s needed to adopt the new documents. Conversely, there may be some international regions with complicated document requirements for custom purposes, so there are genuine cases of need for multiple versions of one document. Here, the business needs to ensure the internal understanding is accurate and complicated documents are not produced for no reason. It is often the super user who is tasked with these investigations. 

Output documents often get left until the last minute but they are essential to business operations.  The technical team will need a specification that says which data needs to appear on which doc, and where it is pulling from. People will have opinions. If it is Customer A, they need this. Customer B needs that. There are always bun fights and they will take up super users time and energy. 

Think they can do all that and their BAU?

I often find myself advocating for super users simply because they are expected to do it all and continue with their day job. Sometimes I am the first person to say it out loud –  that what is being asked, is not possible.

You need to backfill your super users’ roles. I’ll say it again as it is mission critical: backfill your super users’ roles and support them in their IFS ERP project work.

Be upfront about what is expected from super users. Help them to psychologically prepare, and plan for their progression. The person is far more likely to thrive than to sink with proper support. Backfill their roles and your business is far more likely to get an IFS ERP system that works for people right out of go-live.