Moving a Giant ! Project Management the SAP way.
The Giant
ERP implementation projects have being the a major pipe of investments on the IT business for a very long time.
The SAP ERP is the leading solution in this market and in a way or another most IT professionals were impacted by these projects.
Despite all that buzz I have seen many confusion and lack of understanding of management and project managers involved on how this kind of project is conducted.
First of all anyone involved in such endeavor must understand the reasons way a company decide to implement such a solution. The decision process involved in such a decision is not simple and in most of cases stretches for a long period until the final decision is taken. The figures involved typically are from some millions of US$.
Such important investment from any company must be preserved and maximized and for that the Project Management approach is a critical factor.
The Methodology
SAP released on January 2009 the version 3.9 of its methodology called AcceleratedSAP or ASAP (the acronym is also a very good catch to “as soon as possible”) 
That methodology is strongly based on the PMBOK following a roadmap composed by 5 phases stated in the ASAP Roadmap:
- Project Preparation The project is formally initiated, and planning is well under way.
- Business Blueprint
Requirements gathering and conceptual design of the solution. - Realization
Solution is built and tested; performance tests are planned; - Final Preparation
End users are trained; final check of the solution; cutover activities are carried to the new system solution.
- Go Live and Support
The solution is ready to start operations, handover to ongoing support takes place, and the project closing process runs.
The roadmap also describes each phase detailing, inputs, outputs, templates and accelerators as well Global Delivery Considerations.
It is very important also to notice that there are different types of SAP Projects, the most common types are:
- Implementation Projects
- Roll-out Projects
- Archiving Projects
- Migration or Upgrade projects
In next posts I am going to detail each phase. Stay tuned !
Useful resources
ASAP Roadmap – requires SAP Partner ID
Movendo um gigante : Gerenciamento de Projetos com o jeito SAP.
O Gigante
Projetos de implementação de sistemas de gestão empresarial (ERP) tem sido ao longo de muito tempo o grande canal de investimentos em TI.
O SAP ERP é a solução líder neste mercado e a grande maioria dos profissionais de TI tem sido afetados por estes projeto, como usuários, membros da equipe de projeto ou mesmo como suporte a estas equipes.
Apesar de muito se ouvir sobre o tema há muita confusão e falta de entendimento de muitos envolvidos sobre como é gerenciado um projeto deste tipo.
Antes de tudo é essencial que qualquer pessoa envolvida em um empreendimento como este entenda as razoes e objetivos da empresa em adotar uma solução como esta. O processo de decisão envolvido não é simples estende-se normalmente por longos períodos até a decisão final. Os valores tipicamente são de alguns milhões de dólares.
Dada a importancia do investimento por parte das empresas é imprescindível que o mesmo seja preservado e maximizado em seus resultados. Para que isto ocorra o Gerenciamento de Projetos é fator crítico.
A Metodologia
A SAP liberou em January 2009 A versão 3.9 de sua metodologia chamada AcceleratedSAP or ASAP (que também significa “o mais rápido possível”em inglês)
Esta metodologia é baseada no PMBOK e segue um roteiro baseado em 5 fases conforme citado no ASAP Roadmap:
- Project Preparation The project is formally initiated, and planning is well under way.
- Business Blueprint
Requirements gathering and conceptual design of the solution. - Realization
Solution is built and tested; performance tests are planned; - Final Preparation
End users are trained; final check of the solution; cutover activities are carried to the new system solution.
- Go Live and Support
The solution is ready to start operations, handover to ongoing support takes place, and the project closing process runs.
O roadmap tambem descreve o detalhamento de cada fase, inputs, outputs, templates e aceleradores. Há muito mais na metodologia e muito mais detalhes são necessários para que se entenda o que, quando e como aplicar cada ferramenta disponível.
A ferramenta Solution Manager (SolMan) é o principal meio utilizado atualmente para armazenar e apoiar a gestão de um projeto SAP.
Nos próximos posts detalharei cada um destes pontos. Fique ligado !
Recursos uteis
ASAP Roadmap – requer SAP Partner ID
{ 2 comments }
Did you ever do a follow up to this article? I have a client, big into PMI, implementing SAP and they are being required by the integrater to use ASAP. One of the Project leads requested me to find out a way to implement a single project management methodology that would encompass the principles of SAP’s Accelerated SAP (ASAP) methodology and the Project Management Body of Knowledge. Can you point me in the right direction?
Thanks,
Gary
Hi Gary ! I certainly do follow this up !
The ASAP methodology is already built in over the PMBok processes.
For instance, the Planning processes of PMBok takes place on the Phase 1 (Project Preparation) with the construction on documents like the Business Case, Project Charter, Project Management Plan and so on. There is room in the ASAP Methodology to start each phase with additional planning.
I think that the first action you could do is to depict the 42 PMBok Processes along to the ASAP Methodology. That would be a nice start to cross-reference both approaches.
I hope it helped you. Keep in touch Ok ?
kind regards,
Leo
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