Field notes from the program trenches.
Plainspoken POV on what actually makes large ERP and Workday programs succeed, or quietly fail.
The watermelon status report
Green on the outside, red on the inside. The watermelon status report is the most expensive document in your program, here's why it happens, how to spot it, and how to build a status culture that surfaces the red while you can still do something about it.
Read the article →"A status report that's green on the outside and red on the inside is the most expensive document in your program."
The future of ERP: 2026 into 2027
A new series for CIOs, CHROs, and ERP leaders: agentic AI, the 2027 migration clock, the future of the HR function, and the data foundation underneath it all.
Your ERP is hiring agents faster than you can govern them
Every vendor shipped autonomous agents this year. The accountability has not moved, and that gap is where the next expensive failures hide.
The 2027 deadline is a decision, not gravity
SAP's maintenance cliff is the best sales tool software ever built. What the clock actually says, and who benefits from you panicking.
AI won't fix an HR process no one trusts
HCM platforms shipped HR agents this year. The CHRO's real job is deciding which people decisions a machine is allowed to touch.
A new ERP just runs your old garbage faster
Your AI roadmap lives or dies on data quality and clean-core discipline. The 2026 to 2027 migration is your last best chance to fix it.
Workday is one system. Your organization is not.
Where unified HR and Finance deployments strain, the data model, the calendars, the politics, and how to govern the seams.
Workday projects don't fail in the build. They fail in the plan.
Phase gates, decision velocity, scope discipline, governance, the disciplines that decide whether a deployment lands.
Running a go-live command center that actually works
The playbook for the seventy-two hours that decide whether your program lands or limps, roles, cadence, and the decisions you pre-make.
Choosing and managing your SI
The independent-voice approach to selection scorecards, SOWs, and holding implementation partners to the outcome they sold.
Workday lessons you only learn the hard way
The nine most expensive lessons from years of Workday implementations, and how to fix each one before your parallel run hits a wall.
Phase Zero done right
The assessment and business case that de-risk the whole program, and the questions most teams skip until it's too late.
Data conversion: the part everyone underestimates
Why data conversion sinks more go-lives than any other workstream, and how to run it as reconciliation, not loading.
Hypercare that actually stabilizes the business
Go-live is the start, not the finish, the staffing, triage, and signals that tell you the business has truly stabilized.
The steering committee that earns its hour
Most steering committees are status theater. How to run one that actually makes decisions.
Testing and independent V&V: trust, but verify
Why independent validation catches what the build team can't, and how to test like production, not like a demo.