Agile ERP Implementation: The Case of a SME

The definition of system requirements is a critical management issue during an ERP project. The traditional and plan-driven approaches to define these system requirements during an ERP implementation create challenges for small organizations, notably difficulties in the expression of their requirements, often related to a lack of expertise on the subject. This research investigates the implementation of an agile project management approach to deal with this issue in the context of an ERP project. Due to the complexity of adopting agile methods in practice, few organizations are fully agile and are hence more comfortable adopting hybrid approaches by selecting a set of practices among the agile and traditional methods. Even though the adoption of these methods is rapidly growing in the case of real-life ERP projects, few research initiatives have looked into this subject. This paper analyses the case of a Canadian SME that recently implemented an ERP with an agile mindset. Based on the data collected through interviews, observations and documentation, a set of agile practices applied during the ERP project in the SME is highlighted and analyzed. Finally, the impact of this approach on requirements definition and possible improvements for the organization are also presented.