A Comprehensive Guide To Plan, Manage, and Execute a Successful SAP BW Implementation Project – Part 1

1. A Comprehensive Guide To Plan, Manage, and Execute a Successful SAP BW Implementation Project – Part 1 Bjarne Berg Lenoir-Rhyne College

2. In Part 1… • Writing your SAP BW business case • Defining the scope of your implementation • Writing a milestone plan • Developing your staffing plan • Budgeting • On-boarding and training • Writing your workplan • Monitoring the progress of your project • Monitoring quality / instituting a formal approval process • Why you need an SAP BW “user acceptance group”

3. In Part 2… • The blueprinting phase • Leveraging the standard content • Modeling for your solution • Deliverables • The realization phase • Best practices for managing the implementation of ODS and InfoCubes • Managing the environments and transports • Managing unit, system, integration & stress testing of SAP BW • The implementation phase • Executing the cut-over to production • Conducting end-user and power user training • Establishing the end-user support organization • Post-implementation review and next steps

4. What We’ll Cover… • Writing your SAP BW business case • Identifying your requirements, scope, and plan-of-attack • Staffing your project: lessons and examples • Budgeting: how much? and for how long? • Final preparations: on-boarding, writing the workplan, etc. • Wrap-up

5. Writing the Business Case • The business case must be aligned with some concrete business benefits • The best way to write a business case is to align it with one of these areas: • Money • Strategy • Reducing time and effort of delivery • Improved information quality and access for end users

6. Area Area Observation Observation SAP BW BW Benefit Benefit Cost of Ownership Cost of Ownership Maintaining a custom developed SAP is responsible for Substantial maintenance cost savings BI solution is complex and maintenance of the expensive. product. Cost Avoidance Cost Avoidance Updating extract programs BW – R/3 integration points are maintained and tested by SAP Substantial cost savings, by when upgrading R/3 is not having to redevelop new expensive. extract programs for each SAP upgrade Web strategy Web strategy Web delivery requires rapid data BW is closely integrated Enables web initiatives to get delivery of high consistency with with R/3, and can deliver closer to the source data, the source system. data that reflects the both in time and consistency. source system at short time intervals. Reconciliation Effort Reconciliation Effort A substantial portion of the data BW is “ closer ” to the Users spend less time on warehouse effort is spent on source system, and more reconciling data, and more reconciling information accurately reflects data time analyzing it. Information Access Information Access Business users need a high Load times in BW are Users get earlier access to Availability solution less than traditional, information custom- developed data warehouses Example Business Benefits of SAP BW

7. Example Business Benefits of SAP BW (cont.)

8. Example Business Benefits of SAP BW (cont.)

9. What We’ll Cover… • Writing your SAP BW business case • Identifying your requirements, scope, and plan-of-attack • Staffing your project: lessons and examples • Budgeting: how much? and for how long? • Final preparations: on-boarding, writing the workplan, etc. • Wrap-up

10. What user wanted How designer implemented it How customer described it How analyst specified it Identifying Your Business Requirements • One of the first steps is to gather the right requirements. This is done in a variety of ways, depending on which methodology you employ. It is a complex process involving: • Discovery and Education • Formal communication • Reviews • Final approvals An SAP NetWeaver implementation involves more than just black-and-white technical decisions; just because something is technically feasible, doesn’t mean it is wise or desirable from a business perspective.

11. Defining The Scope Of Your SAP BW Implementation • First, determine what the business drivers are, and make sure you meet these objectives. • Define the scope in terms of what is included, as well as what is not included. • Make sure you obtain approval of the scope before you progress any further. All your work from now on will be driven based on what is agreed to at this stage. • As part of the written scope agreement, make sure you implement a formal change requestprocess. This typically includes a benefit-cost estimate for each change request and a formal approval process. Change management is done to manage scope, timelines and competing business requirements.

12. Defining The Scope Of Your SAP BW Implementation (cont.) • For the first go-live, keep the scope as small as possible • e.g., Accounts Payable, Accounts Receivable, G/L, or COPA • You have only 3 dimensions to work with: Scope Resources (people, technology and money) Time If one of these dimensions changes, you have to adjust at least one of the others

13. Prioritizing the Scope (Example) Plan multiple implementations, and write a long-term outline. Control change with a formal change request process.

14. Selecting A Methodology • Many times, there are several potentially “right” choices • i.e., when time-to-delivery is moderate, or when the impact of failure is moderate The diagram is intended to illustrate the differences among the appropriateness of each methodology. The decision is clearer in the extreme. In practice, however, there are “gray zones” where more than one answer may be correct.

15. Writing A Milestone Plan • Use milestone plan to illustrate dependencies and high-level tasks Post this plan on the walls and in the hallways. Don’t hide it in the PM's office! Keep it under 30 items

16. What We’ll Cover… • Writing your SAP BW business case • Identifying your requirements, scope, and plan-of-attack • Staffing your project: lessons and examples • Budgeting: how much? and for how long? • Final preparations: on-boarding, writing the workplan, etc. • Wrap-up

17. Developing Your Staffing Plan: Lessons Learned • Developer training should start early for all project team members • SAP R/3 skills are not easily transferable to SAP BW • Hands-on experience is needed • It’s very hard to learn while being productive • The quality of the team members is much more important than the number of members • An experienced SAP BW developer can accomplish in one day what 3 novice developers can do in a week • The tool has a steep learning curve

18. Developing Your Staffing Plan:Lessons Learned (cont.) • Project time and cost estimates should be based on team’s experience level • Plan on formal knowledge-transfer from external resources from day one • Link inexperienced members with experienced ones • Have identified “go-to” resources available in all areas • Make a list! (we will take a second look at this when we do the budgeting!)

19. Basis and functional R/3 support 4-5 team members and normally 3-6 months duration depending on scope Example: Small SAP BW Project for Single Subject Area • E.g., Billing, Inventory, or Accounts Payable Note: These are roles, not positions (sometimes one team member can fill more than one role)

20. Basis and functional R/3 support Example: Mid-sized SAP BW Project, Single Complex Subject Area • E.g., Cost and Profitability, Internal Billing Note: These are roles, not positions (sometimes one team member can fill more than one role) 8-10 team members and normally 2-4 months duration depending on scope

21. Project sponsor/ Steering Committee Project Manager SAP BW Architect Portal developer(s) Sales Team Finance Team Material Mgmt. Team Business analyst/(sub-team lead) Business analyst/(sub-team lead) Business analyst/(sub-team lead) SAP BW developer SAP BW developer SAP BW developer Presentation developer(s) Presentation developer(s) Presentation developer(s) Basis and functional R/3 support ETL developer ETL developer ETL developer Example: Large SAP BW Project for Multiple Subject Areas • E.g., Sales, Finance, and Material Management Note: These are roles, not positions (sometimes one team member can fill more than one role) 15-25 team members and normally 6-18 months duration depending on scope

22. What We’ll Cover… • Writing your SAP BW business case • Identifying your requirements, scope, and plan-of-attack • Staffing your project: lessons and examples • Budgeting: how much? and for how long? • Final preparations: on-boarding, writing the workplan, etc. • Wrap-up

23. Budgeting Process Steps • Size the SAP BW effort based on the scope • Prioritize the effort • Map the effort to the delivery schedule • Plan for number of resources needed based on the scope, delivery schedule and the effort. We will now look at an example how this process works in the real world Create the Milestone Plan and Scope Statement first, before attacking the budgeting process!! Start the budgeting process by estimating the workload in terms of the development effort. Refine based on the team’s skill experience and skill level

24. 1. Size SAP BW Effort Based on the Scope – Real Example Remember that your sizing also has to be based on the team’s experience and skill level.

25. 2. Prioritize the Effort The next step is to prioritize and outline the effort on a strategic timeline Make sure your sponsor and the business community agree with your delivery schedule

26. 3. Use Project Estimates & the Timeline to Create Project Load Plan There are 480 available work hours per project member per quarter. Knowing this, we can plan the number of team members we need…

27. 4. Result: Good Input for the Staffing Costs and Planning Use this information to plan for training, on-boarding, and staffing This spike in resource needs is due to an overlap in the delivery schedule Now might be a good time to review that decision… Many companies plan a 60%- 40% mix of internal and external resources for a first go-live. Also, most use $50-$90 per hr for internal budgeting and $90-$170 per hr for external resources.

28. What We’ll Cover… • Writing your SAP BW business case • Identifying your requirements, scope, and plan-of-attack • Staffing your project: lessons and examples • Budgeting: how much? and for how long? • Final preparations: on-boarding, writing the workplan, etc. • Wrap-up

29. On-Boarding and Training Don’t underestimate the value of in-house, hands-on training in addition to formal SAP training classes.

30. Writing the Workplan – SAP Best Practices for BI • A sample workplan can be downloaded from the SAP Best Practices for BI web site A test drive is available on the Web site: https://media.sdn.sap.com/html/submitted%5Fdocs/Best%5FPractices/SAP BW/

31. Writing the Workplan • The Workplan • Write a detailed workplan that references the methodology. • Make sure the workplan is detailed enough to track project progress. • Progress can be measured by hours used, vs. % of tasks completed. 400 to 1000 line-item workplans are not unusual for mid-size and large SAP BW implementations More Details on workplan writing available here: “Writing Solid and Realistic Work Plans for a SAP BW Implementation Project”, SAP Project Mgmt Conference - Oct. 2005, Las Vegas: http://csc-studentweb.lrc.edu/swp/Berg/articles/PM05_Berg_Writingasolid.ppt

32. Monitoring Progress • Manage the workplan from a percent complete standpoint on a weekly basis • Create weekly status reports with core progress metrics and send to all team members (keep it high-level and tangible) • Require monthly status reports from all team members in a fixed format • Keep a close eye on the deadlines for the deliverables and make to follow-up personally on late tasks • Track percent complete tasks in the workplan against the number of hours, or days worked, to see if you are on-track. SAP BW is a complex environment that has many dependencies. Late tasks can have significant impacts on the overall project.

33. Monitoring BW Quality and Formal Approval Process: Example Integration Testing Create Technical specs Create Functional specs No System Testing Complete? No Yes Unit Testing Complete? Yes Configuration Peer Review Yes Peer Review Approved? No Yes Approved? No Structured walkthrough Complete? Yes Structured walkthrough No Complete? No Yes

34. The User Acceptance Group and Its Role • Create a user acceptance team consisting of 5-7 members from the various business departments or organizations • Keep the number odd to assist with votes when decisions need to be made. With fewer than 5 members, it can be hard to get enough members present at each meeting • Make this team the focus of your requirements gathering in the early phase, then let this team perform user acceptance testing during the Realization phase • Meet with the team at least once a month during realization to refine requirements as you are building, and have something to show them This approach is hard to execute when also managing scope, but is essential to make sure that the system meets users’ requirements

35. What We’ll Cover… • Writing your SAP BW business case • Identifying your requirements, scope, and plan-of-attack • Staffing your project: lessons and examples • Budgeting: how much? and for how long? • Final preparations: on-boarding, writing the workplan, etc. • Wrap-up

36. Resources • Dr. Bjarne Berg Home page (35 articles and presentations): • http://csc-studentweb.lrc.edu/swp/Berg/BB_index_main.htm • Five Core Metrics: The Intelligence Behind Successful Software Management • By Lawrence H. Putnam & Ware Myers • Waltzing With Bears: Managing Risk on Software Projects – • By Tom Demarco & Timothy Lister • Mastering the SAP Business Information Warehouse • By Kevin McDonald, Andreas Wilmsmeier, David C. Dixon

37. 7 Key Points to Take Home • Write the business case around the areas of greatest benefit to your users • Don’t use a “shotgun” approach, keep it focused • Define your scope in-terms of what is included, and state what is not included • Establish a formal change control process that is well communicated • Plan your project based on the hours required for the effort, and the project teams’ experience and skill levels

38. 7 Key Points to Take Home (cont.) • Establish milestone dates, and map the work hours required to these dates • Establish an “on-boarding” plan for project resources • Establish a formal process for quality control and approval of deliverables

39. END OF PART 1. Next: How Do We Deliver What We Promised? Questions? How to contact me: bberg@myitgroup.com