Investigating the Impact of Project Team Composition in Enterprise System Implementation: an Exploratory Study

The goal of this paper is to investigate the issues connected with project team composition in enterprise system (ES) implementation. This exploratory study builds on research conducted among a few dozen enterprises introducing ES into their organisations. The paper analyses how the inquired companies organised an implementation team and a steering committee. The investigated issues include the project team composition with reference to ES scope introduced, the presence of a system provider’s representative, project manager’s organisational position, and the composition of a steering committee. Furthermore, the paper examines if the projects were headed by an IT/IS person and to what extent they were supported by top management. Using the ES implementation success measure and statistical analysis’ techniques, the study seeks to discover the impact of project team related issues on implementation success. The findings suggest that ES implementation should be a business-lead initiative as contrasted to an IT-driven project. Finally, on the basis of the research, recommendations regarding the implementation team composition were formulated.