Bringing a Stalled Two-Country D365 Rollout to Go‑Live and Stabilization
A regulated manufacturer was replacing its legacy AS/400 system with Dynamics 365 across the United States and Canada. The program was well past its original timeline with no integrated plan, no risk log and no clear decision rights. We came in as the independent PMO and change management team, reset governance, and led the business through cutover, hypercare and a candid lessons-learned review.
- Client
- Multinational consumer health manufacturer, FDA-regulated
- Scope
- US and Canada; Finance, Sales & Customer Service, Supply Chain, Warehouse, Quality, IT
- Platform
- Microsoft Dynamics 365 F&O replacing AS/400, with labeling, EDI and tax integrations
- Our role
- Project rescue assessment, independent PMO, organizational change management, cutover and hypercare leadership
A system project carrying a business transformation
The program started with a clear tactical need: the legacy AS/400 platform was being retired. What it lacked was the strategic alignment and foundation a complex D365 implementation requires. A nine-month timeline was published and teams were held to it, but requirements were not fully understood, current-state processes were not documented, and a major scope miss, moving from basic to advanced warehousing, surfaced mid-project.
The implementation partner worked under a time-and-materials SOW without milestones or clear deliverables. Business SMEs were carrying project work on top of their day jobs, and leadership turnover kept eroding continuity. When we arrived, the program was missing the basics:
- No integrated project plan or milestone roadmap to go-live
- No RAID log; risks were handled as they surfaced
- No RACI, so ownership and decision rights were unclear
- A steering committee that had grown into large working sessions
- A project charter written a year in, and not widely communicated
- Unclear ownership of labeling, EDI and tax integrations
- One-off communications with no regular cadence
- Validation, security and data migration effort not fully planned
What we put in place
Project rescue assessment
An independent review of scope, schedule, risk, ownership and readiness, shared with leadership on day one so decisions started from an honest baseline.
Governance reset
Structured meeting cadences, a steering committee with a defined purpose, clear escalation paths, and targeted working sessions in place of oversized status meetings.
One source of truth
A RAID log and issue tracking in Azure DevOps replaced scattered spreadsheets, giving leadership and workstreams the same view of risks, blockers and progress.
Integration ownership
We clarified who owned each third-party integration across the business, the implementation partner and the software vendors, closing gaps that had stalled testing.
Change management with Align 365
Town halls, consistent leadership messaging, an ADKAR-based readiness view, stakeholder analysis and coordination of training champions across both countries.
Cutover and go-live readiness
A structured, cross-workstream cutover plan with daily cutover meetings to keep the US and Canada teams aligned through the switch.
Hypercare and stabilization
Daily support forums, dedicated onsite support and daily wrap-up calls to triage issues quickly and keep orders, shipping and finance moving.
Lessons-learned assessment
Structured interviews across 18 workstream areas, from planning and PMO to data migration, security, reporting, quality and each regional team, turned into actionable mitigations for future initiatives.
“Without the establishment of a PMO, the project likely would not have reached go-live.”
What changed
Go-live reached in both countries
The US and Canada cut over to D365, data migration from AS/400 met cutover timelines, and operations were kept running through stabilization.
Faster, clearer decisions
Defined forums and decision rights gave the business a stronger voice and improved prioritization and accountability.
Visible risk
A formal RAID log and centralized tracking surfaced blockers early, replacing a reactive approach to issues.
Teams aligned across workstreams
Town halls and formal channels improved communication between leadership, workstreams and regions. The client’s functional leads called the PMO’s arrival a turning point.
Warehouse modernized
Canadian warehouse operations moved from paper-based processes to scanner-enabled workflows.
A playbook for what comes next
Leadership received a documented set of root causes and mitigations to guide future regional rollouts and the post-hypercare support model.
Run ERP as a business transformation
The client’s own conclusion was direct: future ERP deployments should be managed as enterprise business transformations, not system implementation projects. These are the themes that drove the most risk, and the mitigations we now build in from kickoff.
| Theme | Mitigation |
|---|---|
| Planning and discovery gapsRequirements, process maps, success criteria and scope were not defined before design began. | Establish a charter, business case, fit-gap analysis, current- and future-state process maps, a milestone-based SOW and objective go/no-go criteria before committing to timeline and budget. |
| Late PMO, OCM and quality involvementGovernance, change management and validation arrived after risk had already built up. | Embed PMO, OCM, quality/validation and business governance at kickoff, with decision rights, escalation paths, RAID management and a communication cadence from day one. |
| Resource capacity and ownershipSMEs balanced project work with daily operations, leading to burnout and key-person dependency. | Stand up a dedicated business team with backfill, a formal RACI, regional representation, capacity planning, cross-training and protected SME time. |
| Testing, data and reporting readinessEnd-to-end scenarios, migrated data, security roles and reports were not validated against real conditions. | Tie an integrated test strategy to acceptance criteria, with multiple mock conversions, realistic exception scenarios, SoD validation, production-like environments, volume testing and formal sign-off. |
| Training and adoptionMaterials were built under time pressure while users were still learning the system. | Start training early with role-based materials from validated processes, a superuser network, train-the-trainer support, and reinforcement beyond hypercare. |
Is your Dynamics 365 program drifting?
We put named senior consultants on your program to restore governance, ready your people for change, and get you to a stable go-live. Earlier is better, but it is never too late to get a clear baseline.
Client name withheld for confidentiality. Figures and findings are drawn from the client’s post-go-live lessons-learned assessment.