5 Essential Traits to Look for in Your ERP Team Members

ERP teams are rarely hand-picked since an enterprise typically operates with whatever team is on the field at the moment. However, there are many traits which offer plusses and minuses that should be considered when choices are available during ERP team assembly.

Smarts

Among the most sought out ERP team members are folks that operate on pure ‘smartness’ rather than newbie’s or dullards. This may sound obvious, but a smart employee usually embodies other elements like ambition and a need to prove one’s performance reputation. All in all, when managing an ERP team look for the smart person first since that guy will always be willing to put their neck on the line and offer project and/or task ownership first.

Honesty

Having worked with thousands of employees across an extended career, in my view, a team member that is unable to tell the difference between straight talk and prevarication is usually a waste of everyone’s time.

a team member that is unable to tell the difference between straight talk and prevarication is usually a waste of everyone’s time

This belief is derived by a simple fact; horse hockey breeds horse hockey, while straight talk allows a manager to get the bottom of whatever challenge one is facing quickly. So, always look for an honest person first, while avoiding the inverse because the accuracy of your ERP ROI performance report may depend on it.

Assertion vs Aggression

Many smart individuals can be considered ‘too big for the room,’ and at the end of the day, are more damaging than helpful to a team’s morale. The difference being, many intelligent individuals make their point by ‘assertion’, where points are delivered forthrightly but at the same time softly, as opposed to ‘aggressive’ application, where the blunt verbal force used can be both confusing and offensive. Consequently, one should always be looking for assertive ERP team members, rather than the more sharp-edged characters.

Persistence

When dealing with ERP projects the impact of the technical fight sometimes appears to out-weigh its advantages, particularly if the evolution is mis-planned or poorly budgeted from the outset. In the latter case, a group of persistent ERP team members will allow an enterprise to overcome financial limitations leading to success rather than failure.

Sense of Humor

This latter trait is one of the most important elements when building a solid team-based project, since if one can’t laugh about one’s challenges, it usually create a miserable working environment fraught with costly mistakes, and poor overall performance on the bottom line.

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At the end of the day, any complex systems integration, especially those that require a high-degree of intensity and attention to detail, require a team that understands and employs a deep appreciation for ‘in the moment’ humor, lest the cadre blows up right at the moment it is needed most. Therefore, when putting an ERP team together, one would do well to identify and leverage at least one jokester. Apart from anything else, they will be able to help the group get through hard times, without giving up on its ultimate goal.