My top 5 recommendations when implementing an SAP Cloud solution

My top 5 recommendations when implementing an SAP Cloud solution

My current employer was recently awarded the Gold Award in the “Best Cloud Transformation” category within Europe, Middle East and Africa, for the implementation of SAP Employee Central along with an end-to-end digital experience. You can read about it here (https://tinyurl.com/y74vsk9t)

My role, as the Delivery Head, is to ensure that we implement on time and at the right quality and cost. Based on my experience in implementing SAP solutions, here are my top 5 recommendations for a smooth rollout

1. Get your Governance right – Business and IT must be joined at the hip. The cadence I suggest, is to hold a monthly Executive meeting and a weekly Design Authority meeting. The Design Authority is meant to put a regular cadence in place to discuss changes in scope, design, testing approaches etc. The teams should agree on design principles and should stick to them throughout the implementation. This activity will keep both teams in sync at all times and would help the teams to focus on the right outcomes.
2. Internal Skills are mandatory before you start – Having internal skills is so very critical. 6 months prior to commencing our program, I commenced the search of the right team to support the implementation. Skill areas that I consider important are ABAP & BASIS engineers, Product Scrum masters and Solution Architects. Having the key skills on board, helps the project team, prepare the design effectively, taking all constraints into consideration. This will enhance and support testing as well. More importantly, the time taken to assess the design will be shortened considerably, if you have the right skills onboard.
3. Co-locate and be Agile – Co-locate always! Run it Agile, with a PI planning session every 2 weeks, 15 mins stand-ups by each scrum team etc. Co-locating helps to resolve queries, technical issues and design gaps quickly. Do system demos at the end of every sprint. It keeps the teams engaged. All of these activities, particularly reduced our implementation time.
4. Do a process assessment using LEAN Six Sigma – Prior to the implementation, perform a process assessment to determine the gaps and waste in the process. The results of the assessment, will help you to understand where processes need to be simplified and where, technology has a bigger role to play e.g. self-service, chatbots, service desks etc. In our case, we weren’t prepared to implement non-value processes at all!
5. Collaborate and celebrate success – A key success factor is a good and healthy relationship between the business, vendor and IT teams. Do regular team dinners, Day out events etc. The close collaboration will help teams to be frank, honest and driven to a common goal. In our case, we were rooting for each other! And we didn’t fail ??