Implementing an enterprise-level, mission-critical software system is an infrastructure project akin to other sizable projects, such as building a school. It's costly and complex, takes a year or more to complete, requires the collaboration of many different parties, involves uncertainties, results in a long-lived asset requiring ongoing maintenance, and improves the working conditions and productivity of all who use it over time. As with any infrastructure undertaking, software implementation projects are subject to the trade-offs of scope, time, and quality--aspects that are expected to remain constant when, in fact, they are quite variable. In this article, the author provides the following eight tips for ensuring successful software implementation: (1) Invest more time and effort up front; (2) Insist that the timeline relate to actual time needed for implementation tasks rather than a desire to go live by a certain date; (3) Assign a full-time project manager and hold project status review meetings at least every other week with district management, end users, and information technology staff; (4) Don't shortchange (with time or budget) the major drivers of success; (5) Implement the COTS (Commercial Off-the-Shelf) software as is; (6) Be careful about including business process reengineering or fit-gap analysis as task requirement; (7) Perform a user-acceptance test independently of the vendor when the system is ready to go live; and (8) Don't undermine the infrastructure.