Enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems are very challenging and expensive to implement, and past research recognizes that these projects continue to suffer from high failure rates. The factors that contribute to these failures have been extensively examined, but we know little about how to turn failing projects around. In response, this research presents a case study of a failing ERP implementation project that was successfully turned around over a twenty-month period. Adapting a theory of sensemaking in relation to boundary objects, we explain how a new project manager helped team members to share their individual perspectives on the problematic situation and together develop new directions through mindful enactment of project management routines. In this paper, we offer a detailed empirical account of the ERP project turnaround; practical lessons managers can use to intervene in failing ERP projects; and a theoretical model of how project management routines as boundary objects can help participants make sense of cooperative work in the absence of consensus.
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