Production Project Management is Challenging
So there I was, a young maintenance officer in a major depot maintenance facility, and the paint shop had once again screwed up a paint job.
The QA on it had come back as having too rough a paint.
The colonel said it should be as smooth as a baby’s butt to the feel.
I, of course, being of sound mind and body, said I did not have a baby’s butt available for reference.
Needless to say, it befell me to get the paint job err, smoothed out.
Thus, my introduction to Production Project Management. It was just another in the dozens of production projects I managed day-to-day to get planes out the door.
SAP Project Management Is More Like Traditional Project Management
On the other hand, a SAP Project is more what you would understand to be traditional Project Management.
What would that include:
- A formal Statement of Work derived from both an Request for Proposals (RFP) and a seriously long and involved Pre-Sales process.
- Executive Leadership and sponsorship.
- Alignment with your Strategy, i.e., Balanced Scorecard based Strategy Management system.
- Steering Committee formation and alignment.
- Change Management Team and Process Team.
- Business Case.
- Allocation of a budget on the part of a customer.
- Mobilization of a SAP Implementation Team.
- Identification and employment of a Customer Team.
- Series of highly defined project phases.
- Large number of intermediate deliverables.
- A final Go-Live.
- Validation of Achievement of Business Case Benefits.
No arbitrary, non-objective measurements such as baby-butt smoothness.
Instead, and most critically, all deliverables, including the final sign-off (and thus, final project payments) are pre-defined and Certificate of Acceptance documents are prepared and signed-off per agreement.
Define What Project Success Looks Like Up Front
Translated, this means it is critical that you define what success looks like before you start.
Had paint job success been defined as “smooth as a baby’s butt”, in advance, am sure we would have had one available or something like it (it was the military after all, and they stop at nothing to get the mission accomplished:)!
Why is it important to know this? Because even though there are more than 300,000 SAP customers live today on SAP, there have been a large number of project failures (roughly 50% are estimated to not achieve their goals). Doing them right, and having a successful SAP Project, defined as meeting the goals of the Business Case, is, in our experience, an engineering problem and requires that you use the proven SAP Project Management ASAP/Activate methodology and those that hold a formal Project Management Certification often times have an advantage with this.
We know and can make happen successful projects, and via SAP ASAP project reviews, can make sure yours are successful as well.
People Who Read This Also Read:
- Top 10 Tips For The SAP Project Preparation Phase
- The Blueprint To Building A Successful Project
- Uncover The Successful Path Through The Project Realization Phase
- Phase Out Successfully With Our Top 10 Tips For Your Preparation Phase
- Bring Your Project To Life With Our Top Tips For The Go Live Phase
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