ERP Implementation Rescue: 7 Signs Your Infor Project Needs a Turnaround

Nobody starts an Infor CloudSuite implementation expecting it to fail. Yet after 26 years of working with organizations on their ERP projects, I can tell you that roughly one in three implementations I encounter is in serious trouble by the halfway mark. The difference between a failed ERP implementation and a successful recovery often comes down to one thing: recognizing the warning signs early enough to act.

I have spent a significant portion of my career doing what I call ERP implementation rescue work—stepping into troubled Infor projects, diagnosing what went wrong, and building a path forward. It is not glamorous work. It involves difficult conversations, uncomfortable truths, and sometimes telling executives that the decisions they championed are part of the problem. But it is some of the most impactful work I do, because the alternative—a fully failed ERP implementation—can set an organization back years and cost millions in wasted investment.

Here are the seven warning signs I have seen consistently across dozens of troubled ERP projects, along with what you can do about each one.

Sign #1: The Timeline Has Slipped More Than 30%

Every ERP project experiences some schedule pressure. That is normal. What is not normal is when your 18-month Infor CloudSuite implementation is now projected at 24 months and counting, with no clear end in sight. A timeline slip beyond 30% is almost never just a scheduling problem—it is a symptom of deeper issues.

I was brought into a healthcare organization where the original 14-month implementation timeline had stretched to 22 months. The project team kept insisting they were "almost there," but when I dug in, I found that the timeline was slipping because nobody wanted to admit that the core architecture decisions made in month two were fundamentally flawed. Every subsequent phase was taking longer because the team was building workarounds on top of workarounds.

Sign #2: Key Team Members Are Leaving or Burned Out

People are your best leading indicator. When your strongest functional analysts start updating their LinkedIn profiles, when your technical lead is working 70-hour weeks and becoming increasingly short-tempered, when the internal project manager you trusted to champion this initiative asks to be reassigned—these are not HR problems. They are project health problems.

Talented people leave troubled projects because they can see the trajectory before leadership acknowledges it. They know the project is heading toward failure, and they do not want their names attached to it. When I see high turnover on an Infor implementation team, it tells me that the people closest to the work have already lost confidence.

Burnout is equally dangerous. A burned-out team makes poor decisions, cuts corners on testing, and lacks the energy to push back on bad requirements. I have seen CloudSuite projects where the team was so exhausted that they were rubber-stamping design decisions just to keep things moving, creating a backlog of technical debt that would haunt them in production.

Sign #3: The Executive Sponsor Has Disengaged

This one is subtle and often overlooked. Your executive sponsor attended every steering committee meeting for the first three months. Now they send a delegate. They used to read the status reports; now they skim them. They used to make decisions in days; now decisions languish for weeks.

Executive disengagement on an ERP project is devastating because it signals to the entire organization that this initiative is no longer a priority. Without active executive sponsorship, the project loses its ability to resolve cross-departmental conflicts, secure needed resources, and enforce accountability. I have never seen a successful ERP project recovery that did not begin with re-engaging executive leadership.

Sign #4: Scope Has Expanded Without Budget Adjustment

Scope creep is the silent killer of Infor implementations. It rarely happens in one dramatic moment. Instead, it accumulates through dozens of small decisions: "While we are configuring supply chain, let us also add this custom report." "The finance team needs three additional integrations that were not in the original scope." "We should really include the Canadian entity in Phase 1."

Each addition seems reasonable in isolation. But collectively, they can expand a project by 40-60% while the budget and timeline remain unchanged. I worked with one organization where the original scope document was 45 pages. By the time I arrived to assess the troubled ERP project, the accumulated change requests totaled over 200 pages—and not one had triggered a formal budget revision.

The math is unforgiving. If you have expanded scope by 50% without adjusting budget or timeline, you are not managing a project. You are managing a future failure.

Sign #5: Integration Testing Keeps Failing

Unit testing your Infor CloudSuite configuration might go fine. Individual modules might work beautifully in isolation. But when you start testing integrations—connecting CloudSuite to your HRIS, your legacy financial systems, your clinical applications—and the tests keep failing, you have a fundamental problem.

Repeated integration test failures usually mean one of two things: either the integration architecture was not designed correctly from the beginning, or the business process mapping between systems has gaps that nobody caught during design. Both are serious. Both require going back to rethink the approach rather than continuing to patch the existing one.

I have seen teams spend months in what I call "integration whack-a-mole"—fixing one integration defect only to have it create two more downstream. This happens when the root cause is architectural rather than technical, and no amount of bug fixing will resolve an architecture problem.

Sign #6: End Users Are Openly Hostile

Some user resistance during an ERP implementation is normal and expected. What is not normal is open hostility. When department heads are publicly criticizing the project in meetings, when users are actively lobbying leadership to cancel the initiative, when you hear phrases like "this will never work" in every training session—you have a change management crisis that threatens the entire implementation.

User hostility in Infor implementations usually stems from one of three causes: they were not involved in requirements gathering, the system does not reflect how they actually work, or they have been burned by a previous failed technology initiative and assume this one will end the same way. Regardless of the cause, hostile users will sabotage adoption even if the technical implementation is perfect.

Sign #7: The Implementation Partner Is Defensive About Status

This is the sign that organizations most often miss, and it is one of the most reliable indicators that an ERP project turnaround is needed. When you ask your implementation partner for honest status and receive carefully worded deflections, when every risk you raise is met with reassurance rather than action, when the partner's project manager starts blaming your internal team for delays—pay attention.

Good implementation partners tell you uncomfortable truths. They raise risks proactively. They say "we have a problem" before you have to ask. When your partner becomes defensive, it typically means they know the project is in trouble but are hoping to fix it before you notice, or they are positioning to avoid accountability when things go sideways.

What a Project Turnaround Actually Looks Like

An ERP project recovery is not about assigning blame or replacing people for the sake of it. It is a structured process that starts with understanding reality and ends with a credible path forward. Here is how I approach it.

The First 30 Days: Assessment

The first month of any ERP implementation rescue is entirely diagnostic. I interview everyone—project team members, executive sponsors, end users, the implementation partner. I review every document: the original scope, the current scope, change requests, status reports, architecture decisions, test results, risk logs.

What I am looking for during this assessment are the root causes, not the symptoms. A failed integration test is a symptom. A flawed integration architecture is a root cause. User hostility is a symptom. Absent change management is a root cause. Timeline slippage is a symptom. Uncontrolled scope expansion is a root cause.

Common Root Causes I Find:

• Architecture misalignment: The technical architecture does not support the business requirements, often because architecture decisions were made before requirements were fully understood
• Governance breakdown: No functioning change control board, no risk management process, no escalation path for decisions
• Skills gap: The implementation team lacks specific Infor CloudSuite expertise in areas critical to the project
• Requirements confusion: Different stakeholders have different understandings of what the system should do, and nobody has reconciled them
• Data migration underestimation: Data quality issues that were assumed to be minor turn out to require months of cleansing and transformation
• Missing organizational readiness: No change management plan, inadequate training design, no communication strategy

When to Reset vs. When to Push Through

One of the hardest decisions in an ERP project recovery is whether to reset significant portions of the project or attempt to salvage what has been built. There is no universal answer, but here is the framework I use:

Push through when:

• The core architecture is sound and the issues are primarily process-related
• The team has the right skills but needs better governance and direction
• Scope can be trimmed to a viable Phase 1 without losing core business value
• Stakeholder confidence can be rebuilt with visible quick wins

Reset when:

• The architecture is fundamentally flawed and every module is built on a broken foundation
• The implementation partner lacks the Infor expertise to deliver and is not willing to bring in additional resources
• The accumulated technical debt is greater than the value of what has been built
• Trust between the organization and the project team is irreparably broken

Rebuilding Stakeholder Confidence

A troubled ERP project damages trust at every level of the organization. Executives question whether the investment was wise. Department heads question whether the system will ever meet their needs. End users question whether anyone is listening to them. Rebuilding that confidence is essential to any successful project turnaround.

My approach centers on three principles:

1. Radical transparency: Share the assessment findings honestly. Do not sugarcoat. People already know the project is in trouble—pretending otherwise insults their intelligence and erodes trust further.
2. Quick wins: Identify two or three visible improvements that can be delivered within 60 days. These do not have to be large, but they must be visible and valued by stakeholders. Nothing rebuilds confidence like demonstrated progress.
3. Realistic replanning: Present a revised plan that is honest about what has happened, clear about what will change, and realistic about the path forward. Overpromising at this stage is fatal—miss one more deadline and you will lose the organization permanently.

The Cost of Rescue vs. the Cost of Failure

Organizations sometimes hesitate to invest in an ERP implementation rescue because it feels like spending more money on something that has already cost too much. I understand that instinct, but consider the alternative.

A typical CloudSuite project rescue engagement costs a fraction of the original implementation budget—usually 10-20% of total project investment. A fully failed implementation, on the other hand, means:

• 100% of the investment to date is lost (often $1M-$5M+)
• Starting over adds another full implementation cycle (18-36 months)
• Organizational damage makes the next attempt harder because trust has been destroyed
• Competitive disadvantage continues to compound while you are stuck on legacy systems
• Career consequences for the leaders who championed the project

A rescue engagement at the right time is not an additional cost—it is an investment in protecting the much larger investment you have already made.

Patterns from 26 Years of Rescuing Troubled Projects

After doing this work for over two decades, certain patterns are unmistakable:

• The earlier you intervene, the better the outcome. Projects rescued at 40% completion have dramatically better outcomes than those rescued at 80%. By 80%, the technical debt and organizational damage are often too deep.
• The problem is almost never purely technical. In my experience, Infor implementation problems are about 30% technical and 70% organizational—governance, communication, change management, and leadership alignment.
• New leadership alone does not fix a broken project. Replacing the project manager is a common knee-jerk reaction. Sometimes it is necessary. But if the underlying governance, scope, and architecture problems remain, you have just given someone new the same impossible job.
• The best rescue outcomes come from honest partnerships. When the organization and the rescue advisor can have candid conversations—including ones that are uncomfortable—the project has its best chance of recovery.
• Not every project should be saved. This is the hardest thing to say, but it is true. Occasionally, the right answer is to stop, regroup completely, and start fresh with a different approach. Knowing when to make that call is what experience provides.

How to Prevent Needing a Rescue

Prevention is always better than intervention. If you are early in your Infor CloudSuite implementation or planning one, here is what I would tell you:

1. Invest in architecture upfront. Get an independent architecture review before you start building. The cost is trivial compared to fixing architecture problems later.
2. Establish governance from day one. A change control board, risk management process, and clear escalation path are not bureaucracy—they are project insurance.
3. Start change management before the project starts. If your first communication to end users is a training invitation, you have already lost them.
4. Hire experienced Infor-specific expertise. General ERP consultants who are "learning CloudSuite" on your project is a recipe for Infor implementation problems. Insist on proven CloudSuite experience.
5. Build honest reporting into the project culture. Reward transparency, not optimism. The project manager who tells you about a risk early is more valuable than the one who tells you everything is fine until it is not.
6. Plan for integration from the start. Do not treat integration as a Phase 2 activity. Integration architecture should be designed alongside your core CloudSuite configuration.
7. Get an independent health check at the 25% mark. An outside assessment when the project is a quarter complete can catch problems when they are still fixable. Think of it as a project audit.