I have often witnessed tension in CRM projects between scope management and innovation.

Organizations start out thinking of CRM as a project with a budget, a deadline, and a set of high-level requirements. These requirements include the demands of the managers who decided to pay for the project so they are generally not flexible. While there may be vague discussions of future phases to encompass a broader wish list, nobody gives that much thought. The focus is exclusively on the project at hand that will bring CRM to the organization.

Upon kick-off, the project manager (or in some cases business analyst, IT manager, or CRM consultant) must flesh out the detailed requirements as quickly as possible and then prevent those requirements from changing. Project managers know that requirements churn poses the greatest risk to the schedule and budget. With deadlines and budget usually tight and the high-level scope aggressive, the only hope for project success is a determined effort to avoid requirements churn.

The problem is that CRM projects are great learning experiences. As participants think through how they do their work, as they verbalize and visualize their processes, as they understand how their processes affect others across the organization, as they collaborate on how a new system could empower them to reach objectives, they start to rethink what they expected of CRM. People wonder whether they might just innovate.

Oh, no. Sounds like requirements churn. No, let’s not go there. That is a later phase for which there is no budget and no timeframe. So just forget it. Let’s squash that innovation right now lest expectations get out of control. Project managers must meet expectations and so they must control expectations.

Since I’m a PMI certified project management professional (PMP), I do know the PMI answer to this dilemma. It is scope management with a documented process for handling change requests. The problem here is twofold. First, few organizations put such change control boards in place. Second, such a rigid process is unlikely to foster innovation. Just tell somebody with a new idea that they must fill out a change request form and submit it to a committee of superiors and you can be sure they will not have any new idea.

Because CRM projects lead to learning and new ideas, agility is essential to respond to innovation as it happens rather than squash new ideas as a threat to the project schedule.  To consider what agile means, let’s take a look at a few of the guiding principles from the Agile Manifesto.

·         Our highest priority is to satisfy the customer through early and continuous delivery of valuable software.

·         Welcome changing requirements, even late in development. Agile processes harness change for the customer's competitive advantage.

·         Deliver working software frequently, from a couple of weeks to a couple of months, with a preference to the shorter timescale.

·         The best architectures, requirements, and designs emerge from self-organizing teams.

Applied to CRM, I would translate these principles into the following bullet points.

·         Break from the notion that CRM is just one big project with a defined beginning and end. The challenge of satisfying customers and meeting market threats never ends so why restrict the opportunity for employees to innovate.

·         Launch CRM with an expansive vision rather than a rigid scope. The vision should include making the organization outwardly focused toward its customers and markets and promoting continuous improvements in processes that add value to customers. And the vision should tie in closely with the organization’s mission statement and strategy. Obviously, the CEO would be a great person to deliver that initial vision at a kick-off meeting.

·         Include the widest range of stakeholders in the kick-off meeting even if initial phases will not directly affect them. Collaboration across the organization is a great catalyst for innovation.

·         Keep each phase, especially the initial phases, short so that the team does not have to push off new ideas far into the future. Do not insist that the first phase include every high-level requirement requested by the executive stakeholders. Some of these requirements may be replaced as new ideas emerge. And once people start using a system, they will have a better understanding of their requirement priorities.

·         Follow proven project management practices within each phase to reliably implement new features on time and within budget.

·         Encourage brainstorming and idea generation on an on-going basis. When new ideas emerge, create ad-hoc teams to pursue them even if the actual implementation is not in scope for the current phase. Do not just say “not now” and leave it at that.

·         Make sure initial phases focus on usability rather than maximizing features. If people hate using CRM, it is unlikely to become a platform for innovation.

·         Select a CRM platform that not only satisfies initial requirements but can adapt to meet evolving requirements. Microsoft Dynamics CRM is a great choice.

·         If you hire consultants to start you on your way with CRM, make sure team members learn as much as possible from the consultants both about how to perform business analysis and how to customize the CRM platform. In that way, the journey of continuous innovation through can continue after the budget for consultants runs out.

In other words, start out with a big vision but get there through small steps.

In a few of our recent CRM implementations, the Chief Operating Officer has played a key role in project success.

In our experience, COOs are good at bringing the right stakeholders to the table and encouraging them to cooperate.  Certainly, CRM brings much more value to organizations when it bridges the long-established divides between marketing, sales, service and operations.  COOs tend to think beyond traditional departmental silos and see the larger picture of where CRM can bring value.

Moreover, COOs think in terms of processes, which is the most critical and complex dimension of CRM implementations. Processes related to CRM are complex in that they involve multiple customer interactions over time, interactions between departments, and interactions between the organization and its vendors.

In addition, COOs help break through status quo thinking. When asked about software requirements, many business users will tell you how things are done now. Even if they realize that the status quo is inefficient, they may not feel as if they have a mandate to change. The status quo is rooted in the minds of employees as well as job descriptions, training manuals, performance appraisals, compensation plans, company culture, and formal and informal power relations. The COO knows the organization’s strategic direction and has the stature to push for change.

Finally, COOs bring effective leadership to a team. While usually too busy to function as a project manager or to make every project decision, a COO can impart a sense of purpose and urgency to a project and encourage a team to work through the difficulties.

This is not to say that COO involvement guarantees success or that the lack of it dooms a CRM project to failure. The job of the COO differs widely across organizations and industries and is sometimes limited to a single function such as manufacturing. Obviously, the question of who should lead a CRM project depends on the circumstances of the specific organization. However, I would recommend that organizations consider giving a leading role to the COO.