It's funny but after working at doing the same thing over and over for years at a time sometimes we forget the little things that make all of the difference in the world.  At this point you are probably thinking I have lost it and what does repetitively doing anything have to do with the consumption of pachoderms.  Well, nothing to tell you the truth.

The comment about the elephant has to do with the a joke someone told me as a child.  "How do you eat an elephant?" Answer, "One bite at a time."  I thought of it yesterday as I sat in a meeting with the CEO of a fairly successful medical device manufacturer.  The elephant in this instance is actually a CRM implementation and eating the elephant deals with act of successfully coming through a CRM implementation and finding real value on the other side.

I explained to the executive that I had probably skipped a couple of steps in the discussion of how to approach CRM regardless of the industry or focus for the application.  Some things are just universal.  Here is some of what we discussed:

1.  When most companies deploy a new ERP or Accounting system they usually have experience and some level of pretty descriptive needs.  In a CRM deployment there is a foundation, set of tools, and your imagination.  Even today nearly half of my deployments are not replacing a system but putting one in for the first time.  The lesson here is to take small bites at the beginning.

2.  Since no one is holding a gun to your head on what you must do take a pragmatic approach to lay out a long term vision and then pick two or three immediate challenges to address.  The long term vision helps to make sure that short term decisions will not create heavy costs or dire implications when trying to reach the long term goal in the future.

3.  Figure out the political aspects of your project.  With those first few objectives outline "wins" for the individual that you are hoping to accomplish and "wins" for the organization.  If there is not something for everyone or you don't involve the people that must use the system every day it will be an uphill climb at best.

4.  Keep analyzing your business and creating a priority list based on what is happening in the business.  This is important because the busienss climate continues to change yet so many projects I have seen fall flat because they lose alignment with business objectives.  The project team stays true to their vision from several years ago even though a new vision or new leader may have changed direction for the firm and its goals.

At the end of the day everyone probably realizes that you probably can't eat an entire elephant and certainly not by yourself.  In fact, in the past ten years, I have stepped away from the figurative "table" a few times to catch my breath and so have many of my customers.  All of this is important but artificial timelines and mandates won't get you any closer to having a system that people understand and embrace.

So, to my CEO friend in New York, open wide and take the first bite.  It's an acquired taste but wait till you see where you are a couple of years from now.