This Insider Insights post was written by 33Floors’ Chief Operating Officer Tina Kikaj and originally appeared on her LinkedIn profile.
Enterprise software implementations are notoriously complex endeavors with high stakes. Major ERP projects can involve millions of dollars, multiple business units, and mission-critical data — leaving little room for error. Yet software projects often run late, overspend, or fail outright. In fact, more than 70% of ERP implementations fail to meet their original objectives, according to Gartner.
Yardi, a leading real estate management software suite, is no exception. Implementing Yardi involves migrating large datasets (such as property and lease records), integrating with other systems, reengineering business processes, and coordinating across multiple departments. With so many moving parts, these projects can easily go off-track. This is why dedicated project management is critical to steering ERP implementations toward success. Effective project management provides the oversight and control needed to navigate Yardi’s intricacies, keep the project on course, and deliver value on time.
Why Project Management Is Critical for Success
A strong project manager (PM) serves as the driving force of the implementation, coordinating every facet from kickoff to go-live. Project management isn’t just bureaucratic overhead — it’s the glue that holds the effort together and moves it forward.
The key benefits of effective project management include:
- Clear leadership and direction: A PM provides leadership that aligns team efforts with the project’s objectives and the organization’s goals. By clearly defining the project’s scope, timeline, and deliverables up front, the PM reduces ambiguity and misdirection. Everyone knows what success looks like and how to achieve it.
- Coordination of teams and tasks: Implementing Yardi typically involves several stakeholders from IT, finance, property management, and possibly even external vendors. A project manager orchestrates these cross-functional teams, ensuring tasks are completed in the proper sequence and dependencies are managed. This coordination keeps all parties working in sync and prevents things from falling through the cracks.
- Risk mitigation: Every complex project faces risks, from data migration issues to scope changes and technical roadblocks. An experienced PM proactively identifies risks early and develops mitigation plans. Project managers help prevent common problems, such as missed deadlines, scope creep, budget overruns, and poor implementation outcomes by tracking risks and tackling issues before they escalate. In essence, the PM is continually asking, “What could go wrong?” and ensuring there are contingencies in place.
- Stakeholder alignment and communication: Frequent, transparent communication is another hallmark of effective project management. The PM facilitates candid conversations, status meetings, and updates so that all stakeholders — from end users to executives — stay informed and engaged. This helps avoid the communication breakdowns that plague many failing projects. By managing expectations and keeping leadership and teams aligned, the PM builds buy-in and prevents late-stage surprises or resistance.
- On-time, on-budget delivery: Ultimately, the project manager’s job is to drive the implementation to the finish line within the agreed schedule and budget. Through careful planning and ongoing control of scope and resources, the PM helps the team hit their milestones and contain costs.
While project management may seem like an added expense, it acts as an investment to streamline processes, optimize resources, and minimize errors — saving far more by averting rework and delays. A well-managed Yardi project is far more likely to go live on time and deliver the expected ROI.
In short, project management provides the structure, foresight, and discipline that a complex Yardi implementation needs. It ties together the many workstreams — including data conversion, configuration, testing, training, and others — into one cohesive plan and keeps everyone accountable to that plan.
Implementing an enterprise platform can be a high-stakes journey, but it shouldn’t be a risky or chaotic one. The difference between ERP implementations that flounder and ones that flourish often comes down to effective project management. Organizations that invest in strong project management reap the rewards through smoother deployments and systems that meet their business needs, whereas those that neglect it often learn painful and expensive lessons.
The takeaway is clear: No matter how powerful the software or how experienced the technical team, a seasoned project manager is essential to unlock the full value of ERP implementations such as Yardi. By mitigating risks, aligning stakeholders, and keeping execution disciplined, strong project management turns the complex undertaking of a Yardi rollout into a structured process with predictable results. It’s an investment that pays for itself many times over in the form of avoided delays, controlled costs, and realized benefits.
In our next post, we’ll talk more about how 33Floors’ project management expertise drives successful Yardi implementations. In the meantime, please reach out if you have questions about Yardi implementation, support, development or data science capabilities.
