SAP BW|BOBJ|Project Management Blog

10 Reasons You Need a SAP Project Review

Written by Lonnie D. Ayers, PMP | Tue, Apr, 23, 2013 @ 07:50 PM

Importance of SAP Project Management Reviews

 

What if you were doing a SAP implementation in an industry where literally everything was life and death critical? 

 

Wouldn't you want to make sure it was absolutely the safest solution possible?  What sort of industries might fall into this category? 

Several come to mind, but one in particular comes to mind to me-aviation.  Others include medical, rail transportation and manufacturing, such as Mill operations. 

Many others exist, no doubt.

 

If you’re like most business owners, you would want your SAP implementation to be a success, and one way to do that is to include an SAP ASAP Project Review in your SAP implementation plans.   

 

Before I delve into the reasons you need to do project reviews, let me tell you about one of my very first project review experiences, which happened to be with a Cable manufacturer, which used, at the time, a solution called, the IS Cable solution, now rolled into the IS Mill solution, due to similarities in various related industries.

SAP ASAP Project Review Per the SAP ASAP Methodology

 

If you have been to a Boy Scout Jamboree, you may have seen a version of cable manufacturing.  Basically, it consists of a big wheel with holes in it, that spins while rope feeds through it.  Anybody could do it, right? 

SAP Project Review Team

Well, cable manufacturing in the context of the SAP ASAP Project Review I led, was about manufacturing cable for high tension power lines, which turns out to be a bit more complicated.  When they build those things, they also build the metal towers they hang on, and pour the cement those towers are embedded in. 

 

So any solution quickly gets way more complicated than you would imagine, involving SAP PLM (Product Lifecycle Management), SAP PS (Project Systems), significant financial and production planning business processes and some complex math.  It also generally involves a number of third party systems. 

SAP ASAP Project Review Outputs

In short, it's a complex industry.  Guess what, many, many life and death operations depend on these cables being built right.

 

The project review team for this particular project uncovered a variety of issues, both solution and manpower related.  I have since performed several Project Reviews in a variety of industries, and not just SAP project related. 

 

What are the 10 Top Lessons Learned:

 

  1. The solution envisioned in the original contract never actually matches the SAP solution designed by the SAP implementation team.  Don’t worry, this is how it has to be.

  2. If you pay peanuts, you get monkeys.  It pays to seek out and make sure you have Top Gun SAP talent on your SAP project.  Third party auditors are useless in this regard.  Your PM is the person who should have sole responsibility for deciding who stays, and who goes. 

  3. A solution oriented project review is much different than a project management review.

  4. The reason for doing a solution review is to see if there isn’t a better solution in the box than the one envisioned during the original contract negotiations.  Be open minded about new solutions, especially on long term projects.  SAP Solution Reviews are a normal the SAP project life cycle.

  5. Follow SAP’s recommendation unless you absolutely KNOW you can do better.  Remember that cable manufacturer Project Review I mentioned.  They failed to heed the advice on the number of systems required for transports and ended up wiping out literally months of IMG configuration data with old configuration data.

  6. Schedule Reviews, both Solution and Project, for each phase, as per the ASAP methodology.
     
  7. Schedule a post Go-Live Value Realization and Optimization exercise approximately 6 months after the first Go-Live, even if it is a multi-phase, multi-site, multi-industry SAP implementation.

  8. Keep in mind the Project Reviewer will be focused on getting you to Go-Live.  There are a lot of reasons for this focus.  Trust us.

  9. If possible, the reviewer will be looking to take out as many developments as possible.  You can expect resistance to this.

  10. One key focus area of the review will be the effectiveness of the change management program-see item 9 above.

 

SAP Going-Live Checks and SAP Early Watch Reports

 

Finally, the SAP Project Review team will be looking for the results of your Going-Live checks and any early watch reports.  There are a lot of golden nuggets buried in those.   Want to get started with your SAP ASAP Project Review?

 

 

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Do you have other techniques for conducting a SAP ASAP project review.  We would love to hear about them in our comments below.

 

 

 

 
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