What would you do if time and money were not a consideration?
Who cares?? I dare you to find one company for whom time and money are not a consideration. Even the largest companies with the deepest pockets have some sort of ownership or shareholders to which they are accountable for those little details like time and money.
Of course we want it all and we want it for as cheap as possible. Those are sometimes (not always) opposing desires. So what’s a company to do in making their decisions… simple — prioritize. I see companies struggle with prioritization everyday in my role managing implementation projects of CRM and ERP software for businesses. The catch though, is that prioritization really isn’t simple. It comes with… ugh… tradeouts.
My advice on tackling prioritization is to start at the very top. Assess the high level strategy as determined by the leadership. These strategies can help guide what is important down to some of the most tactical things. For example — is the strategy to ‘grow’? Then the priorities that should be emphasized in a software implementation are ones that support expanding the infrastructure, scaling out capabilities like access and reporting, and support flexibility or the ability to change processes as the organization grows.
Once you understand the high level direction of the company, those strategies need to be applied to the decisions around solutions that will support those goals. And then finally, those high level strategies serve as the directionality when making decisions about what that system needs to do, how customized something needs to be, and/or where tradeouts may need to be made.
This can guide decisions on everything on possible integrations with other systems to the depth of a customization. If a trade out over convenience and complexity has to be made taking cost into consideration, I will always challenge the decision makers I am working with by asking those questions about what is acceptable or not in the context of their short and long term business goals. And challenge assumptions about the both the cost of the software or services as well as the cost associated with their people, processes, etc.
Again, it isn’t simple. Even if you can gather consensus on the highest level strategies — interpretation of what that means for a team, department or an individual is often up for debate. This is the tricky part that often involves a little soul-searching on the part of the groups I am working with. In the ’storm’ of the implementation, it is very hard to cling tightly to the highest level strategic priorities when the noise and pressure from individual users or teams is often not only loud - but legitimate. Open communication and a fair assessment of those true priorities, along with transparency (as much as is possible) to those affected by a prioritization decision helps garner support for those tradeouts when they have to be made. Good luck! Happy Prioritizing!