Designing change management processes is a project that relies on input from teams spanning the entire SAP ERP landscape. It is critical that the project leader create a detailed set of procedures and requirements before implementing change management processes.

The adoption of formalized change management processes in the SAP ERP community has been driven by three distinct waves, according to Rick Porter, vice president of business development, Revelation Software Concepts.

The first wave was a drive to save money by eliminating redundant tasks within the IT department. The second was pressure from the Sarbanes-Oxley Act and other regulatory measures.

The third wave, Porter says, is being spurred on by the growing power of the SAP ERP system itself. As more companies adopt multiple production systems, phased system landscapes, and dual ABAP and Java environments, the pressure to deal with needed changes effectively has increased.

“The increased flexibility of the SAP system results in more requests for change. Also, the introduction of major projects and the five-system SAP landscape has forced more companies to think about managing change in a busy SAP environment,” he says.

The five-system landscape refers to SAP’s recommended server configuration for large projects. The landscape includes two development servers, two quality-assurance servers and one production server, as illustrated in Figure 1.

Figure 1

The five-system landscape

The growing complexity of systems and requirements means the average company now processes many thousands of changes per year, as shown in Figure 2.

Figure 2

Average number of changes per year, by type (Source: AMR Research)

Revelation Software Concepts and other vendors sell tools, like SAP Solution Manager, to help companies keep track of their change management processes, but Porter says the basic steps to designing those processes are the same whether your company manages change manually or with the aid of software.

Here are the eight basic steps Porter recommends for designing change management processes:

Step 1 — Start at the top

The first step is to consider why the business needs to implement change management processes in the first place. Taking a high-level snapshot of these drivers helps focus the effort at the outset, and will save time later when considering specific elements such as authorizations and approvals.

“There are different reasons for putting change control in place. For example, if one of your high- level process strategies is to be Sarbanes-Oxley compliant, then you are going to have to include a range of things in your change control processes, such as segregation of duties,” says Porter.

Other common high-level drivers include conforming to the Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL) recommendations for change management.

Step 2 — Determine the types of processes you will need

One of the key mistakes companies make, according to Porter, is treating different change management processes as equals. After all, some changes are more important than others.

“The idea behind change control is to manage each type of change at the appropriate level. For example, the FDA and the pharmaceutical industry face problems at the moment because they take the highest-risk for everything scenario,” he says. “Good change control processes mean you manage expensive, high-risk changes differently than others.”

See the chart in Figure 3 for a basic illustration of how to assess risk when determining process types.

Figure 3

How to assess risk

Common types of change management processes include emergency processes, production support processes, project-based processes, and regulatory processes.

At this stage, project managers should also consider the number of processes appropriate for their business. Some of Porter’s clients choose to implement 10 or more processes, while others rely on three to five processes.

Step 3 — Designate the appropriate authorizations and approvals

At this stage, the benefits of thinking through the high-level drivers of your change-management processes should become clear. A detailed approach to determining who in the organization is responsible for approving changes, and at what stage, is critical to maintaining the integrity of the processes.

“Certain strategies require certain types of authorizations. With Sarbanes-Oxley, you will certainly need authorizations from business users as well as developers and configurers. Depending on the change, you might also want authorizations from high up the organizational tree,” says Porter.

Step 4 — Define the types of change to be processed

Change requests take various forms. Enhancements, security fixes, configuration changes, and SAP Notes requests are all common in a change management environment. Porter recommends careful consideration of each potential request.

“The rule really is to balance between too broad and too granular,” he says. “The more granular your definitions of change, the more control you’re going to have over the process. The warning here is that if you get too granular without some sort of technology to manage it, it’s going to get too cumbersome to manage.”

Step 5 — Create a set of unique processes

Once the project team has identified the high-level drivers, authorizations, and types of change to be processed, it’s time to pull those elements together into unique change management processes tailored to the requirements of the business.

Some common processes that cross multiple applications and business needs include maintenance, emergency, reapplication, and project processes. Porter says this is where the insights gained in the first four steps really begin to pay off.

Step 6 — Define the required status steps

Each change management process should be divided into well-defined status steps to push change requests through approval and implementation. Typical status steps might include change approved, budget approved, specifications approved, development approved, approved for production, and closed.

Step 7 — Identify the approvals required at each status step

Because some changes pose more risk than others, the approvals necessary for each status step will vary. A low-risk change may only need approval at lower levels, while high-risk changes may require high-level approvals plus multiple approvals at several steps.

Porter says this step presents an opportunity to save time when creating change management processes, as project managers can simply alter approvals to create new processes.

“In that case we’re utilizing the same process, but we’re treating the approvals within that process differently,” says Porter.

Step 8 — Define the workflow for each process

The final step in the process is to map the trajectory of a change through the process by defining a workflow for each of the selected processes. The workflow is essentially a communications tool through which the approvers indicate that a change has progressed through a status step.

There is little consensus on how this workflow should be constructed, says Porter.

“We’ve seen situations where everybody is informed at every step, and also situations where a guy just walks over to the Basis guy and asks him to move the change through. It’s varied, but there does need to be some defined, systematic workflow policies put in place,” he says.

Plan Carefully

As with other projects involving human capital from a variety of applications touching an ERP system, Porter says a lack of internal collaboration and foresight has hampered the adoption of change management practices at many SAP ERP companies.

“One of the reasons companies may not have made a lot of progress is that there’s quite a bit of thinking involved,” he says.

Whether you rely on SAP Solution Manager or a third-party tool to create and control your change management processes, effective planning is crucial. And following an organized, step-by-step methodology is a sure first step.

Davin Wilfrid

Davin Wilfrid was a writer and editor for SAPinsider and SAP Experts. He contributed case studies and research projects aimed at helping the SAP ecosystem get the most out of their existing technology investments.

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