SAP Project Management

What Is SAP Project Management?

ERP systems are large and complex, involving many modules that include functions from across the organization. Managing the implementation and ongoing maintenance of these systems involves project management. This is where SAP Project Management comes into play. Starting with the implementation, a project management team must make plans for infrastructure, timeline, resources, cost, and integration with other systems and technologies. With ERP implementation projects taking between one and two years, a team of dedicated resources to oversee the project is an integral part of its overall success.

What Is SAP Project Management?

ERP systems are large and complex, involving many modules that include functions from across the organization. Managing the implementation and ongoing maintenance of these systems involves project management. This is where SAP Project Management comes into play. Starting with the implementation, a project management team must make plans for infrastructure, timeline, resources, cost, and integration with other systems and technologies. With ERP implementation projects taking between one and two years, a team of dedicated resources to oversee the project is an integral part of its overall success.

Ongoing maintenance of systems can often be just as complex. SAP project management must plan for functions like moving data between development, test, and production instances, connections between production instances in multiple locations, or the potential centralization of data from distributed instances. In addition, SAP project management teams must plan for downtime for patching both in the ERP instance and in the underlying platform, potentially adding new modules, extending or customizing existing features to provide new functionality, and keeping teams up to date on upcoming features in new releases. With most SAP sites having dozens or hundreds of instances, there is no substitute for a project management team responsible for this.

Key Considerations for SAPinsiders

• Project management is key to the initial and ongoing success of large SAP projects. The Eczacıbaşı Group is one of the biggest manufacturers of bathroom products in Europe, and when they decided to redesign and update their SAP systems, one of the biggest factors behind their success was their effective project management. Starting with a thorough evaluation of their existing systems and processes, they ensured that they involved members of their business teams at all levels of the process. But having an overall project management team that met regularly to handle any critical issues that came up was a big part of the project’s overall success.
• With an effectively run project, it’s easier to make your SAP system near perfect. Organizations often aim at ensuring that their SAP implementation is good rather than great in an effort to save time and resources. But this two-part article by Kurt Goldsmith says that, for SAP project managers, achieving a great SAP implementation may actually be easier than a merely good SAP implementation. Consider some of the tactical differences that you can aim for in order to achieve that great implementation, and how to be open minded about the project. Whether you’re implementing a new ERP system, or something much more focused, Goldsmith has great points to help you as a project manager.