Where Does Agile Fit in SAP Projects?

By |November 12th, 2012|

After offering insight based on my personal experiences around "Agile Project Methods for SAP ERP Projects?" I wanted to highlight a few areas where Agile does work: Design sessions Development efforts (i.e. coding) Data conversions Once you begin to move beyond these areas, you quickly encounter dependent workstreams that need much more coordination. Those additional dependencies make it difficult to apply Agile methods. While Agile tends to emphasize the one-week to one-month "sprint," I woul [...]

Building an Effective SAP ERP Delivery Organization

By |November 5th, 2012|

There are generally three major components for improving SAP delivery. These three components can improve SAP and technology delivery in general while impacting corporate business performance and marketplace success. Delivery Approach Delivery Methodology IT Organizational Development The following content is written with a focus on SAP; however, it can be completely generalized to virtually any IT organization. You need a careful focus on the delivery approach. Here there are two key paradigms [...]

Agile Project Methods for SAP ERP Projects?

By |October 29th, 2012|

Looking at the "Agile Manifesto" and how Agile methods have been applied generally involves small, discrete, "digestible" work and task components. Juggling the number and complexity of dependencies on a full-scale SAP ERP project involves management and coordination efforts, which completely go against the idea of pure Agile methods. ====== ERP projects tend to have too many moving parts and dependencies for Agile, as the methodology provides too little control and coordination. The level of c [...]

SAP Change Management Program Success

By |July 30th, 2012|

Lots of literature, information, and resources focus on change management for successful enterprise application projects. To address SAP change management, the SAP Activate Methodology provides resources, tools, and templates, along with guidance for Change Management during your SAP project. Even though the Activate methodology and various other resources provide some great information, the high-level guiding framework always seems to be somewhat vague. For example, businesses receive a consta [...]

Achieve Business Benefit Through SAP Prototype Demonstrations

By |July 16th, 2012|

SAP Conference Room Proof of Concept Pilots Proof of Concepts with frequent early prototyping drive project costs down. Consider the old saying: “an ounce of prevention can avoid a pound of cure.” Proof of concept pilots during the project are a rarely mentioned SAP critical success factor. Early in my SAP career, the disruption these prototype sessions, conference room pilots, etc. would cause used to frustrate me. My thought was, "I have a job to do and don't have time for this." No one ever [...]

Untangle SAP Software Licensing

By |July 9th, 2012|

A while back, I read a self-serving post on LinkedIn from a company that promoted how “wonderful” Oracle is for having a public price list, and how terrible it is that SAP and others do not. The main complaint was that SAP lacks transparency. However, while SAP does not publicly publish a price list, the company does have a pricing structure that is regularly updated and quite thorough. Additionally, the post failed to mention Oracle sales tactics. The company virtually gives their software awa [...]