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Original author(s) retain their own copyright(s). Original content is Copyrighted © by R3Now.com.
Pursuant to Title 17 U.S.C. 107, other copyrighted work is provided for educational purposes, research, critical comment, or debate without profit or payment. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for your own purposes beyond the 'fair use' exception, you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.
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This site is not affiliated with, endorsed by, nor operated in conjunction with SAP, any of its affiliates, subsidiaries, partners or those who have a direct relationship with the company. For more information from SAP, please visit the company site at: www.sap.com
Please note, all articles, submissions, or other information that does not come directly from SAP is opinion and suggestion. However, submissions by the author, Bill Wood, are based on 15 SAP projects and nearly 13 years SAP experience. In practice, actual results, or particular tasks and steps may vary depending on your unique situation or circumstances.
The author reserves the right to correct, update, alter, modify, or remove any articles or other content on the site as circumstances may warrant. No warranty or guarantee of any kind, express or implied, is offered for any information contained within this site. |
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R3Now Purpose and Mission - SAP and ERP Excellence
Practical Enterprise Transformation Using SAP or ERP applications
Dedicated to providing detailed insight from the trenches on how to get the most out of your SAP implementation. No fluff, no sales pitches, just real nuts and bolts on how to do SAP the right way.
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| Reducing SAP Project Stresses Part 2 – Expectation Setting |
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 Part 2
Probably one of the most overlooked consulting and management skills is expectation setting. More often than not, the difference between a good job and a mess is the understanding of what was expected. This is true both from the person who is supposed to meet the expectation as well as those setting expectations.
In SAP or ERP projects this can make the difference between a very successful project and one that is a disaster.
Expectation setting during an SAP implementation comes at many points and phases of the project. There are several types of expectation setting, here are some examples that relate to project expectations as well as working environment:
- The Scope document sets expectations for processes that will be addressed. [FN1]
- The Blueprint sets expectations for details on how the scope will be set up.
- Key Milestones defined and dates set.
- Key deliverables defined and dates set for completion.
- Consultant working hours.
- Internal employee working hours and time commitment.
- Expense and time submissions.
- Any preferred vendors and expense limits, such as hotels, rental cars, etc.
- Company policies that consultants must adhere to.
- Any special parking requirements, building access, or system access requirements.
There are many other items to add to the list, however this list gives you some examples to help as a baseline. A solid scope document, good blueprint, decent milestones and deliverables with realistic deadlines will go a long way toward ensuring a successful project with stress levels that do not get out of control. Add to that clearly set expectations for the working environment (working hours, etc.) and that makes for a decent foundation.
One of the major risks of improper (or a lack of) expectation setting is demoralizing and frustrating seasoned consultants. A seasoned professional will do what they can to ensure success. If they have real experience they also understand how to raise and mitigate risks to that success. When expectations are improper, such as when they unnecessarily impact family life of a traveling consultant, they can cause tremendous stress and aggravation. Or when there are unspoken expectations about working hours, or about client employee time commitment and effort on a project these can be trouble spots.
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Posted by wjwood64 on Wednesday, February 04 @ 18:53:50 MST |
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| Reducing Implementation Project Stress, Part 1 |
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PART 1...
A good SAP project with solid performance requirements will often be a stressful experience. Anyone who has been through any ERP implementation has experienced those project stresses. And although this may sound counterintuitive, if you’ve chosen the right people for the project during the course of the implementation tempers will flare. Why do tempers flare with the right people? They are usually the people who care the most about the business and are passionate about their responsibilities.
If the employees assigned to the project are not used to the grueling hours, 10 – 12 or more hours a day, they may find themselves in difficult situations. Some projects have taken significant tolls on project member families, even causing divorces and physical or emotional problems.
There are however a few ways to significantly reduce that stress and ensure the temper flare-ups are kept to a minimum.
What causes many of the problems?
- Direct competition from other business areas or processes, often occurring at what SAP refers to as module “integration” touch points.
- Improperly set expectations (or the lack of setting expectations at all).
- Few or no objective metrics to ensure that all teams and key project components come up to the same place together (think of an orchestra with the percussion, brass, and string sections all playing different parts of a song--, what a mess!).
- Little or no recognition for the hard work.
- Unrealistic scope and time pressures.
- Consulting resources without the necessary experience to know how to set proper expectations and mitigate risks.
Knowing about some of these stresses, and keeping a watchful eye for them during a project can really help to reduce some of the pressures.
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Posted by wjwood64 on Wednesday, January 21 @ 21:47:57 MST |
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| The Agile Enterprise and Regulatory Compliance |
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How can you be more nimble?
I’ve done several projects on financial intensive operations subject to Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX) compliance, and pharmaceutical companies, heavily regulated through 21 CFR Part 11 (Validated environments). What I’ve found is that in a highly regulated environment the need to be nimble is greater than ever. With global competition which is not subject to the same rigorous requirements combined with smaller / privately owned competitors it is more important than ever to find ways for the enterprise to be agile.
Unfortunately, the very nature of regulatory schemes makes agility difficult. Even more puzzling is these areas of the enterprise appear to be "off-limits" to the type of process improvements, streamlining, cost reductions, and simplifying that are required to stay competitive in a global environment.
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Posted by wjwood64 on Wednesday, January 21 @ 20:51:53 MST |
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| How to scope your SAP implementation or upgrade |
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 Scope, scope, scope. Over the years, hundreds of articles, documents, and warnings about scope setting, scope control, and scope management with ERP and IT projects have been written. We've heard it all before. Project scope is one of the biggest ERP project risk factors, yet few articles offer practical insight on setting or managing scope. From an SAP perspective, all of the tools and resources have been provided to do the job correctly, right from the beginning, even before an RFP is issued.
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Posted by woodb01 on Monday, May 14 @ 15:08:09 MST |
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| SAP, ERP III, SOA and the Learning Organization |
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Introduction
Everyone’s heard the buzzwords, ERP, SAP, SOA, you name it. In the technology area they’re everywhere. These are just acronyms for ways companies try to leverage technology for competitive business advantage. Reduce costs, streamline operations, increase revenue, and transform your organization.[1]
Since ERP applications and technology transformation have entered the business world there remains one area that enterprises struggle with --, the realm of capturing and then converting employee "know how" into ERP solutions--, Knowledge Management.[2],[3] There is a simple, inexpensive way to implement ERP III, enabling your ERP application to transform your enterprise into a learning organization. ERP III is simply a way to capture that "know how" to develop SOA (Service Oriented Architecture) and business solutions to create real competitive advantage.
Background
The ERP revolution began with integrating the “back office” functions of the enterprise: purchasing, ordering, financials, HR, distribution, inventory, etc. The idea is that the whole enterprise relies upon a common set of data from a single database which provides one version of the truth or a lie--, one version to rely upon or correct nevertheless. Then we have ERP II, extending the ERP application from the back office to the extended supply chain, to the web, to the banks, and beyond.
Enter SOA or Service Oriented Architecture, the idea of “universal” and completely reusable application services that can be “plugged in” to other applications. This SOA architecture would then allow for the rapid assembly of dynamic process chains and application chains as business and opportunity needs arise. SOA holds tremendous promise to enhance and extend the idea of ERP II even further, but an idea that will take time and tremendous effort to get off the ground and do effectively.
The next generation of business transformation is ERP III, or the ERP enabled learning organization.[4] However, SOA’s success and timeliness are directly tied to how well an enterprise is able to create a “learning organization” within its development and IT ranks. But this learning organization method can and should be applied to the entire organization.
This learning organization approach is one of the key backbones to a successful SOA initiative as well. The cornerstone of effective SOA re-use policies and procedures, service standards, and validated service development is directly correlated to how well the enterprises developers are able to collaborate and coordinate their efforts (especially in an ad hoc manner).
Service Oriented Architecture, or “SOA” requires a level of participation, collaboration, and information exchange like never before to be successful. True “SOA” requires a blending of technology, collaboration, and cooperation with highly structured standards to achieve a significant level of trust in the development work. While many suggest that this level of collaboration, integration, and reliability within the enterprise may take enterprises as long as 10 years to accomplish, the methods defined in this paper can dramatically reduce that time and effort. [5]
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Posted by woodb01 on Friday, April 27 @ 15:08:26 MST |
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 SAP can deliver amazing results, or mediocrity. If your company has decided to implement SAP, the results you achieve depend on your reasons for the implementation and your commitment to excellence in staffing the project.
The key to achieving optimal results from an SAP implementation is to use the implementation as a lever for change. If you’re just looking to put in an ERP system, then all you’ll have in the end is just another system, more integrated and requiring more discipline. In the end, you’ll never realize the promise of what a properly implemented ERP application, such as SAP, can do for your business.
“The software is less important than the changes companies make in the ways they do business. If you use ERP to improve the ways your people take orders, manufacture goods, ship them and bill for them, you will see value from the software. If you simply install the software without changing the ways people do their jobs, you may not see any value at all—indeed, the new software could slow you down by simply replacing the old software that everyone knew with new software that no one does… To do ERP right, the ways you do business will need to change and the ways people do their jobs will need to change too. And that kind of change doesn’t come without pain.
The important thing is not to focus on how long it will take—real transformational ERP efforts usually run between one and three years, on average—but rather to understand why you need it and how you will use it to improve your business.”
Christopher Koch, The ABC’s of ERP. CIO.com, November 17, 2005. This focus on business processes and process change while using ERP as a change lever automatically helps to ensure greater company "ownership" and control of any ERP project.
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Posted by woodb01 on Tuesday, April 17 @ 16:33:47 MST |
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| Screening methods to find the right SAP consultant |
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 Whether you are a business or a consulting firm, get what you’re actually paying for.
High salaries with few “entrance requirements” make SAP consulting a prime fraud target.
SAP implementations are crucial for competitive advantage in business. Parts of those competitive advantages are efficiencies, integration, and automation when properly implemented. To achieve these benefits, you entrust your business, your company, your enterprise, and your employees to a group of technology and business “gurus” believing these experts will help you achieve your goals.
In such a critical business endeavor you need the best software and the best consultants that money can buy. As a result, SAP and other ERP consultants have typically been some of the highest paid professionals in the technology sector. With one or two full implementations, about 2 to 4 years of experience, it is not difficult to get a full time position in industry or consulting, paying $80K to $100K, or even more. For a decent contractor, that amount can easily be double or more. The U.S. average salary for a doctor or lawyer is around the same amount as the full time position. However, unlike doctors and lawyers, there is no hard “entrance” requirement except claims of experience and the ability to get through the interview process. Remember also that these compensation levels are in the region of senior management or executive pay at many companies.
Because of the potential “goldmine,” SAP consulting is a target for cheats, cons, and liars. Worse yet, there’s an entire cottage industry set up to help write fake resumes, coach potential applicants, and even do initial phone screens to help these individuals “cheat” their way into their first real project.
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Posted by woodb01 on Saturday, April 14 @ 10:01:19 MST |
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