Agile software engineering practices in ERP implementation

Abstract

The Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) implementation is a complex and active process, one that involves a mixture of technological and organizational interactions. Often it is the largest IT project that an organization has ever launched and requires a mutual fit of system and organization. Concept of an ERP implementation supporting business processes across different departments in organization is not a generic, rigid and uniform process - it is a vivid one and depends on number of different factors. As a result, the issues addressing the ERP implementation process have been one of the major concerns in industry. Therefore, ERP implementation process receives profound attention from practitioners and scholars in academic or industry papers. However, research on ERP systems so far has been mainly focused on diffusion, use and impact issues. Less attention has been given to the methods/methodologies used during the configuration and the implementation of ERP systems; even though they are commonly used in practice, they still remain largely undocumented in Information Systems research domain. This paper aims to provide insight from practice (SAP ERP implementation team up with 20 SAP consultants including authors of this paper) regarding the agile engineering practices in ERP implementation process. One of stubbornly persists belief was that ERP systems cannot be part of agile development due to their complexity and nature. However, it is becoming obvious that agile engineering practices will not be anymore exclusively linked to software development as SAP (biggest world ERP vendor) recently introduced its first agile ERP implementation methodology named SAP Activate Methodology.