There's a reason that London tube stations always used to warn passengers to 'mind the gap'.

It was because if you don't you could get stuck in the gap between where you are now (the platform) and the train that will take you to where you want to be (your destination) .

At the start of every ERP implementation there is also a significant gap between you (the client) and your partner(s)/supplier(s) called the knowledge gap.

The knowledge gap is the gap between:

• what your partner(s) know about your business
• what you know about your partner(s) solution(s)

Closing the knowledge gap is something that takes place over the duration of the project and is fraught with difficulties as it adds another dimension to the project, namely the knowledge management dimension.

The first step in closing the knowledge gap is to acknowledge the gap exists, and its scope and scale, with your steering and delivery teams and with your partners.

The second step in closing the knowledge gap is to communicate how you will do it.

So how do you close the knowledge gap?

1. Be clear about your expected future state and business objectives
2. Do the hard analysis work up-front and create a meaningful statement of work (SOW)
3. Keep revising your solution expectations and SOW to reflect reality
4. Do regular solution playbacks throughout the project
5. Document knowledge gained in a centralised repository

Another issue with understanding the 'solution' is that although much of it will be out-of-the-box and therefore 'discoverable' over time through books, demos, documents and training sessions, it is often the case that the high-impact solution deliverables are in the form of customizations that are not even known at the start of the project.

This is why another key tool in closing the knowledge gap is to keep a change-log of all customizations otherwise this knowledge gets lost in the shuffle. This may come as a surprise but I have never seen an ERP system with an out-of-box, push of a button changelog report that explains all changes made to your instance in non-technical language.

The knowledge gap may never be truly closed as both your business and your solution will continuously move on.

But an essential part of the change management of your project is to checkpoint regularly with your track/workstream leads that the knowledge gap is in fact closing and not staying static or - god forbid - getting wider.

Implementation 6