ERP projects rarely fail on go-live day. They fail in the weeks after, when the real workload hits and the cracks appear. The warning signs almost always show up earlier — they just get ignored.
Watch for these seven patterns: unclear ownership between business and IT, scope that keeps quietly expanding, data migration treated as an afterthought, training compressed into the final week, no defined cutover plan, custom development without governance, and leadership that disappears once the contract is signed.
Each one is fixable on its own. The danger is when several show up together, because that is when the project stops being an implementation and starts being a recovery effort.
The fix is not more software. It is sharper ownership, a realistic timeline, and the discipline to say no to scope that does not serve the original business case.