SAP Implementation Methodology

We saw two methodologies in recent past that SAP partners follows for SAP Implementations namely ASAP and SAP Activate. Activate is the latest methodology that SAP developed based on best practices and advance project management approach. ASAP is relatively old approach that is more focus on On-Prem implementations on the other hand Activate is a methodology that caters all that is On-Prem, Cloud and Hybrid implementations.

The major difference between the two is that in ASAP first we decide what SAP needs to do and then we plan how to configure or even customize SAP however in SAP Activate we do iterations to see how SAP standard functionalities could fit to business also known as Fit to standard approach, this will help organizations reduce the need of customization and explore standard processes. Let's have a look at SAP Activate in further details.

SAP Activate

It’s an agile methodology with following characteristics:

-????????? SAP Best Practices: Starts with SAP’s rich best practices by running iterations, scope items and building block fact sheets.

-????????? Fit to Standard: Conduct fit to standard and Planning & design workshops with customer to drive priorities.

-????????? Validate Solution: Build and Test solution with frequent section points by customer.

-????????? Scalable & Agile

-????????? Cloud ready

-????????? Quality

Phases

SAP Activate starts with Discover and ends at Run with four main phases in between that are Prepare, Explore, Realize & Deploy. Following is the brief summary of each phase:

Discover

This phase is to familiarize with SAP S4/Hana or to get first experience with a standard trial solution. Customer can either signup for a trial on cloud or run it on IDES on-prem solution. It’s very fruitful to run pre-configured role base scenarios, understand benefits and develop strategy to implement based on this experience. Resultant plan should be aligned with organization’s strategic goals.

Customer should document pain points, required modules/functionalities, integrations, reports and As-Is processes to refer during implementation.

Prepare

Kick off the project, onboard and introduce partner and customer teams. This phase starts with Project Charter, Project Plan and official Kick-off of the project. Partner prepares, share and guide on master data templates. Setup initial system from pre-activated appliance to perform fit to standard analysis using SAP best practices. Do challenge changes with standard without impacting business values. Prepare fit-to-standard workshop or iteration.

Explore

Execute Fit-to-standard workshop / iteration and identify gaps, this will be the first iteration with customer on specific scenarios either on IDES or standard cloud trail solution, consultant also identify required integration and required extension. Do document properly the identified gaps, required integration and extension. After first iteration do validate gaps, identify solution and plan & execute second iteration to verify and accept delta design with customer. Business design document, changes (RICEFW) document, baseline build document and authorization and security document should be ready and sign off to mark this phase as close before moving to next phase. It would be great if second iteration can be performed on customer data to make more clarity and relevancy.

Realize

Business process & Master data realization in multiple sprints with customer’s nominated team members, first without integrated scenarios and then with integrated scenarios among different modules. It would be very beneficial to run complete cycles like Order to Cash, Procure to Pay etc. with relevant stake holders from both partner and customer sides. ?

Unit test & UAT of RICEFW that are ready should be done during these sprints by the end of realize phase should get acceptance on all RICEFW, master data & cycles to deploy the final solution. Dev and QAS servers should be ready, also verify end user roles on QAS. End user training along with training documents should be done.

Perform Go Live check by confirming all integrated cycles UAT, RICEFW, user trainings & roles and sign-off of all deliverables. To make life easier it would be great if all end users run their real-life scenarios in QAS before going live, this will help prevent surprises after going live.

Deploy

Finalize end user trainings, resolve and close open issues if any. Deploy PRD server and import signed-off configuration and development objects, setup user roles & test users, perform manual configurations settings, review & verify deliverables.

Plan cut over strategy: it should be synced with all stake holders to make them plan affectively, which will help in minimizing the blackout period. Before blackout final master data verification and rectification should be done, closing and preparation of open balances should be planned.

Go-Live: perform closing in legacy system, close open orders, prepare balances in provided SAP templates, reconcile balances, take sign off, upload balances, verify balances in system, take sign off and confirm system availability to perform live entries. Perform backlog entries of black out period in live system. Blackout period could be of 1 to 5 days depending on complexity, size and cutover planning. It is suggested to perform balance upload during realize phase on QAS system to move smoothly while go live.

Run

After Go live Support and monitoring of deployed solution. Perform tasks that were on hold or postponed in previous phases due to priority.

What can Haunt you back?

Following are few things that you need to be focused on if you don’t want them to haunt you back time and again.

-????????? Scope (modules, integrations, RICEFW)

-????????? Stake holders (Sponsor, Consultant, Power user, end users etc.)

-????????? Documents (that should be prepared and sign off)

-????????? Master Data (since very start of the project)

-????????? Hardware sizing