What’s the fastest way to assess whether business users are truly prepared for an ERP upgrade?

Here’s how you find out in 48 hours:

1. Run a War Room Simulation

Pull your SMEs, business leads, and a few C‑Suite sponsors into a room. Give them a realistic scenario: «The cutover failed. Data didn’t migrate. Go-live is in 12 hours. What do you do?»

• Red flag: If they freeze, defer to IT, or start blaming the SI, they’re not ready.
• Green light: If they outline clear steps — escalation paths, backup plans, who owns what — they’ve been prepped.

2. Ask Three Questions

Pose these to your business users. Their answers will tell you everything:

• «What’s the one thing you’re most worried about breaking during go-live?»
  • Bad answer: «I don’t know» or «The system.»
  • Good answer: «Customer order processing because we haven’t tested the edge cases with [specific team].»
• «Who do you call at 2 AM if your critical report fails?»
  • Bad answer: «I’d email the helpdesk.»
  • Good answer: «I call [name] in the delivery team, and here’s the backup process we agreed on.»
• «What’s your personal plan for the first 72 hours post-go-live?»
  • Bad answer: «Show up and see what happens.»
  • Good answer: «I’ve blocked my calendar, prepped my team on manual workarounds, and know where the issue logs are.»

3. Check Their Calendars

• Unprepared teams have no time allocated for testing, training, or issue resolution.
• Prepared teams have dedicated slots for UAT, dry runs, and hypercare support—and they’ve delegated BAU tasks in advance.

4. Review Their «Cheat Sheets»

Ask for their personal notes, process maps, or quick-reference guides.

• Unprepared users have nothing or rely on generic training docs.
• Prepared users have custom checklists, contact lists, and workflow diagrams they built themselves.

5. Test Their AI Fluency

Give them a hypothetical problem (e.g., «A key report is wrong, and the SI is swamped. How do you diagnose it?»).

• Unprepared: «I’d wait for IT.»
• Prepared: «I’d pull the data manually, cross-check with [tool], and escalate with these details: [specifics].»

The Brutal Truth: If more than 30% of your users fail these tests, your upgrade is already in trouble. Fix it now — delay the go-live, intensify training, or bring in reinforcements. Hope is not a strategy.

What concrete strategies can replace hope in ERP upgrade planning?