What to take away
Define measurable outcomes
Document roles and exceptions
Treat data migration as a workstream
Agree ownership before selecting technology
Business outcome
State what should improve and how you will know. Examples include shorter order cycle time, fewer reconciliation hours, clearer branch comparison or reduced unbilled activity.
- Current baseline
- Target measure
- Affected roles
- Cost of the current problem
- Decision deadline
Workflow and rules
For each priority workflow, record the trigger, steps, decisions, exceptions, responsible roles and completion evidence. Include what should happen when information is missing or policy is exceeded.
Data and integration
List source files and systems, data owners, quality issues, retention needs and interfaces. Confirm whether external tools provide documented APIs and commercial access.
- Master data
- Historical transactions
- Documents
- Identity
- Payments
- Accounting
- Messaging
- Reporting
Security and operating ownership
Define who can view, create, approve, export and administer information. Assign owners for policies, access reviews, support and release decisions.
Adoption and rollout
Identify pilot users, training needs, peak periods, cutover constraints and how success will be monitored after launch.
Common questions
How detailed should ERP requirements be before speaking to a vendor?+
Detailed enough to explain outcomes, priority workflows, roles, exceptions and current systems. The implementation partner should help turn that operational context into a product and technical specification.
Should every department submit a feature list?+
Collect needs, but consolidate them around shared outcomes and end-to-end workflows. Independent feature lists often reproduce existing silos.