Million-dollar question: How to use design thinking in SAP projects?
SAP has been talking a lot about design thinking and Hasso Plattner, the genius, is one of the design thinking evangelists. He speaks about it with enthusiasm of a young entrepreneur. In this post I used the excellent paper “On the Perception, Adoption and Implementation of Design Thinking in the IT Industry” to help you in clarifying the question: how a “free” mind-set as design thinking can be used in projects such as SAP implementations?
"It is not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change."
Charles Darwin
Software implementation is strongly associated with technical and business complexity. The human and its social aspects are not dealt. Within the IT world, this problem has been tackled so far in two different ways:
- New design disciplines such as interaction or user experience design came up taking on specifically the role of the “user’s advocate” within project/development teams;
- New software engineering approaches, in particular those summarised under the umbrella term “agile development”, put strong emphasis on an incremental and iterative development processes that is adaptive to user feedback throughout.
But in a practical way, daily routine of a project has been linear as SAP ASAP methodology preaches (Preparation, Blueprint, Realisation, Final Preparation and Go Live & Support) and it should remain so. However, using design thinking does not mean we have to give up traditional phases of a project. Instead, we should work in a constant iteration once design thinking has no linearity.
We will be always invited to revisit different stages even those in the past. So we can combine these two approaches, linear and human-centred. Be prepared because humans change mind, learn from experiences and, above all, are in constant evolution.
SAP Solution Architect - Sr. SAP Techno-Functional Architect at Best Buy
8 年I mean, the big bang blueprint is good for overall plan but big bang implementation is very questionable. Implement the base line SAP then add one business process at a time (one by one). Make the business profitable and make business users comfortable. As soon as you complete 1st one and start 2nd BP, the business and BP owner already realize and recognize where we are moving, that is very important for next move. As early as possible the business uses the application is very important...agile methodology is the best.
SAP Solution Architect - Sr. SAP Techno-Functional Architect at Best Buy
8 年Yes I agree. It is good.
HCM Solution Advisor @ ORBIS People GmbH | SAP SuccessFactors Confidant | Driving Digital HR
8 年With most things now being web based applications, we'd need design thinking more than ever, but it will often look like something you can save a few pounds on, if you take it out. So, yes Gilson, please keep preaching the message! Well, having said that, some projects look as if there had been no budget for any kind of thinking, let alone design thinking... ;-) As for ASAP: RiP! I've always seen it as a justification for big "integrators" to rip off customers by forcing them to sign off a blueprint at a stage they can't really understand well enough, what they defined. Then create huge numbers of change requests later and blame the "stupid customers", who don't know what they want. SAP Launch (formerly known as BizExpert) make much more sense and do indeed resemble the method I've always preferred.