WHAT DOES AN ENTERPRISE RESOURCE PLANNING PROJECT MANAGER DO?
Updated: Jun 04, 2025 - The Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) Project Manager actively participates in constructing project timelines, ensuring on-time, on-budget delivery while meeting quality standards. Coordinates all involved teams, manages risks, and oversees cutover preparation to ensure smooth go-live. Implements prescribed methodologies engages in continuous improvement and collaborates with the steering committee and business leads for successful ERP project execution.
A Review of Professional Skills and Functions for Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) Project Manager
1. ERP Project Manager Duties
- Collaboration: Work with the Finance and Procure to Pay business community to understand current processes, system issues and requirements, and objectives for the future
- Recommendation: Recommend system approaches and solutions based on best practice accounting, procurement, and budgetary examples and ideas
- Prioritization: Work with the business community and the Financials and Procure to Pay applications support team to ensure production support and application enhancement requests and system changes are prioritized
- Solution Design: Review business requirements with the goal of developing high-level solution design, timelines and resource estimates for implementation, including deployment recommendations factoring in the Technology Department's standards, security, audit and compliance requirements
- Team Management: Assign and manage the work of the Financial and Procure to Pay applications support team to ensure timely achievement of support and enhancement tasks and manage quality and productivity of the assigned staff
- Functional Design: Supervise process and functional design activities, create functional requirements as an input to application design, develop and test detailed functional designs for business solution components
- Application Deployment: Supervise application build, test, and deploy activities, plan and execute data conversion activities and drive test planning and execution
- Project Monitoring: Monitor and report project status and milestone achievements for all phases of a project on a very regular basis and implement remedial actions
- Mentorship: Mentor and motivate the team and foster a culture of continuous learning and improvement
- Technology Monitoring: Monitor technology trends such as emerging standards for new technology opportunities
2. Enterprise Resource Planning Project Manager Details
- Timeline Management: Active participation in the construction of the project timeline
- Accountability: Accountable for the project going live on time, within budget, and meeting or exceeding quality standards
- Methodology Adherence: Implement and adhere to prescribed methodology and significant KPIs to measure achievement of project objectives, on time, and on budget
- Communication: Contribute actively to communications related to the project
- Coordination: Coordinate all teams involved and follow up on development activities utilizing in-house tools and methodology
- Template Compliance: Ensure that teams are adhering to validation rules and are using the correct templates according to each phase of the project
- Risk Reporting: Report risks and request mitigation solution(s) timely to the teams throughout the project’s life cycle
- Cutover Preparation: Accountable for cutover preparation, ensuring that teams are informed and preparing all tasks to be executed during and prior to go-live
- Cross-team Collaboration: Coordinate with Basis, authorization, training, Change Control, master data teams, and any other satellite teams involved in the project
- Continuous Improvement: Engage in and contribute to continuous improvement in project methodology
- Knowledge Sharing: Share knowledge and improvements with the Project Manager team
- Project Leadership: Responsible for leading the ERP project implementation, working closely with the steering committee and business leads
- Business Analysis: Assist with the project implementation in a business analyst role
- Meeting Management: Organize, animate, and document project meetings
- Requirements Analysis: Provide detailed requirements analysis/documentation, process mapping, and coordinate user acceptance testing
3. Enterprise Resource Planning Project Manager Responsibilities
- Project Management: Manage projects working with all aspects of a project life cycle (initiation, planning, execution, and closing phases of projects)
- Documentation: Develop project charters, and assist in the writing of documentation, project scope, and documentation
- Project Coordination: Manage all facets of large-scale projects and ensure that projects achieve desired business and technical objectives for ERP applications and other IT applications
- Resource Management: Manage and coordinate all resources involved with the software implementation, including 3rd party client relationships for design and development activities
- Issue Tracking: Effectively track issues and risks, communicate status, and escalate concerns via status reports and communication to the project team and Executive Management
- Collaboration: Work with Business Sponsors and Analysts, Development, and QA throughout the project life cycle
- Relationship Building: Maintain a strong and collaborative relationship with the business and IT and serve as a strong advocate of the new/enhanced process or solution
- Project Planning: Develop and maintain project plans that align with project scope, clearly illustrate the team’s progress, and serve as the foundation to report the status of the project
- Quality Assurance: Understand and follow PMO metrics that ensure a project’s data is high-quality
4. ERP Project Manager Accountabilities
- Project Management: Project management of key IT projects
- Cost Management: Project costing/budgetary management
- Testing: Development and implementation of test plans
- Stakeholder Collaboration: Working with stakeholders to define needs, vision, and documentation of requirements
- Budget Tracking: Develop and maintain project budgets, track program spend
- Reporting: Reporting/presenting progress to the senior management team
- Leadership: Provides work direction and leadership for business systems analysts, business leads, and external resources to ensure on-time completion of projects within budget
- Requirements Translation: Translates high-level business requirements into detailed function & process specifications considering input from business leads, process owners, functional department managers, and systems integration architects
- Progress Tracking: Tracks and reports the progress of projects to management
- Performance Evaluation: Participates in performance evaluations of team members
5. IT Enterprise Resource Planning Project Manager Functions
- Project Planning: Develop and manage detailed project plans (with a clear critical path) and budgets
- Scope Management: Manage the scope/requirements and ensure all agreed deliverables are met while mitigating risks through robust plans
- Change Management: Responsible for organizational communication, training, adoption, and change management
- IT Integration: Project manage and deliver components of the IT integration, including data migration and conversion, and business systems integration
- Process Documentation: Work with internal IT applications team members, project champions, project leads, and subject matter experts to document & map business processes and articulate end-to-end business requirements for integrations
- Collaboration: Participate and contribute to IT discovery and discussions, across functions for business application portfolios
- Documentation: Responsible for functional and technical documentation during the new applications systems development lifecycle
- Project Metrics: Drive integration project plans with clear metrics, operating mechanisms, and regular updates to the Steering Committee
- Risk Management: Identify and manage project risks, escalate as needed for resolution
- Process Improvement: Improve project management processes and increase efficiencies
6. Dynamics Enterprise Resource Planning Project Manager Job Description
- Needs Assessment: Determine the needs of each project and the required business resources to implement ERP projects, clarifying and defining the strategy and objectives of each client
- Project Delivery: Being responsible for the delivery of high-quality ERP projects, ensuring they are delivered on time and on budget
- Risk Communication: Identify potential challenges to the project and communicate with the implementation team and client appropriately to alleviate risk to the project and ensure it is delivered according to the agreed timescales and budget
- Client Knowledge: Develop and maintain an in-depth knowledge of the client’s organization, business needs, and challenges
- Resource Planning: Determine the needs of each project and the required business resources to implement the solution, clarifying and defining the strategy and objectives of each client
- Process Adherence: Follow PMO processes while completing agreed PMO documentation, making recommendations for improvement
- Progress Reporting: Present senior management with weekly internal reports outlining the progress of current projects
- Implementation Planning: Planning and executing the implementation, providing regular progress updates to the client
- Client Relationship: Develop and maintain an in-depth knowledge of each client’s organization, business needs, and challenges in the business sector
- Expectation Management: Ensure expectations between the client and the business are set well and maintained throughout the life of the project
- Challenge Resolution: Identify potential challenges to the project and communicate with the implementation team and client appropriately to alleviate risk to the project and ensure it is delivered per agreed timescales and costs
7. Enterprise Resource Planning Technical Project Manager Overview
- Team Leadership: Leading and managing a small team of internal employees and/or consultants within the department
- Program Planning: Initializing and planning programs in the area of responsibilities consisting of multiple projects and work streams with low to medium complexity/change dimensions
- Prioritization: Identifying and directing the projects and resource priorities that align with business objectives and executing plans that drive toward goal achievement
- Collaboration: Partnering with IT (e.g. functional leads) and business area leaders across multiple functions to identify and plan programs and projects
- Architecture Alignment: Aligning with Architecture Services Lead on the target architecture to ensure that investments and best practices are leveraged, likewise ensuring that development and security standards are considered
- Team Coordination: Ensuring that all activities are aligned with the ERP Product Owners, Release Management team, ERP Platform, and Delivery Services team
- Resource Allocation: Assuring appropriate prioritization and alignment with the strategy and direction of the EPM organization and that appropriate resources are allocated for development
- Coaching: Directing and coaching the people in the team and providing technical guidance
- Governance Alignment: Ensuring that ERP Services project governance effectively aligns with technology strategy/roadmaps and enterprise architecture plans
- Compliance: Ensuring programs and projects are delivered in accordance with all applicable compliance requirements, e.g. JSOX, GxP
- Market Monitoring: Monitoring the market to gain knowledge and understanding of emerging ERP/SAP knowledge and implementing best practices and continuous improvements
8. Enterprise Resource Planning Project Manager Details and Accountabilities
- Project Management: Complete overall finance ERP project management for implementation of new Global ERP system
- Team Leadership: Select, lead, and motivate project teams from both internal and external stakeholder organizations
- Agile Implementation: Be responsible for the implementation of the Global ERP system and change request deployment activities using Agile Development methodology
- Testing & Documentation: Ensure testing and documentation procedures are followed and work with continuous improvement towards these processes with business consultants and technical developers
- Integration Management: Work closely with integration partners to ensure that existing and relevant Finance applications are well integrated with future ERP platforms
- Process Adherence: Follow a standard process as defined by a recognized professional project management certification
- Expertise Development: Value and develop project management expertise within a culture of effective communication and customer service excellence
- Stakeholder Engagement: Engage collaboratively with stakeholders to guide and understand customer and corporate business needs and objectives
- Requirement Coordination: Assist functional leads to prioritize and coordinate requirements with the ability to break down complex processes into managed and scheduled packages of work
- Vendor Management: Establish vendor relationships to enable harmonization of work streams, expectations, and change processes
- Reporting: Provide regular project reports and briefings to stakeholders
9. Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) Project Manager Tasks
- Consensus Building: Emphasize building strong consensus and collaborating to find legitimate paths forward.
- Dependency Management: Work with teams to identify, manage, and communicate dependencies that may impact timely project delivery.
- Risk Assessment: Assess project risk and implement risk mitigation plans to reduce negative impacts on business initiatives' delivery.
- Impact Assessment: Assess the impacts of changes to project scope, cost, or timelines.
- Stakeholder Buy-In: Facilitate impacted teams and stakeholder buy-in, and communicate resulting plans.
- Client Service: Deliver outstanding client service focused on solving the right problem in the right way.
- Leadership: Leverage past leadership experience to build strong, goal-oriented teams.
- Relationship Building: Using a listen-first philosophy, quickly form trusted-adviser relationships with clients, including senior executives.
- Strategic Thinking: Think strategically and facilitate goal-oriented working sessions to develop value-add solutions to client problems and opportunities.
- Proactive Mindset: Maintain a self-starter mindset to proactively anticipate and address client needs.
- Team Leadership: Lead delivery-oriented project teams using compelling communication tools and techniques that fit the culture of the client’s business.
10. Enterprise Resource Planning Finance Project Manager Roles
- ERP Configuration: Configuration of the core ERP modules (Finance, O2C, P2P, Consolidation)
- ERP Implementation: ERP implementation and consecutive roll-out to subsidiary companies
- Vendor Management: Main contact for external solution providers and internal IT
- System Development: Further development of ERP system together with users, developing use cases, design specifications, and test scenarios
- System Monitoring: Monitor the system daily and respond immediately to security, usability concerns, and help desk requests
- Data Management: Together with the Head of Finance, develop a corporate MIS and deliver data management solutions
- Internal Controls: Deliver system-based solutions to support Utopia’s Internal Control System, liaise with external Auditors
- System Maintenance: System maintenance and documentation