With six million dollars already invested, this commercial property company was being more than reasonable. Their SAP implementation had stalled in the blueprint phase due to a business requirement specific to their industry.
SAP was asked to review the design, and they came back with a recommendation that was supported by several members of the team. But the consulting firm leading the project had been following a rigid implementation road map and were unwilling to concede and change their approach.
The mentality of most integrators is to stick to a tried-and-true methodology. But this can also lead to trouble. Predefined work plans tend to promote a 'best practices' mentality. Consultants configure the system based on what they've done in the past, and then the customer adapts to standard processes.
Property Management is a relatively new vertical market for SAP and customers are still learning how to configure the system to best facilitate the functionality and reporting mechanisms.
The proposed design required frequent changes to the organization structure as buildings were acquired and sold. This complicated the setup process somewhat, but the downstream processes and reporting features required less work to configure.
When this new approach was accepted, a new team was assembled. Immediately, we went about developing a flexible work plan around Conference Room Pilot (CRP) phases. An MDM expert was also brought on to develop a data governance policy and integrate master data management processes with organization structure changes within SAP.
The new approach worked as expected. Following the old plan, users were unclear on whether the proposed design would work and felt uncomfortable with the process. But now they were responsible for leading the CRP sessions and were able to see the impact of their design decisions first-hand.
Within a few weeks, all the teams were aligned to the new work plan and a simple set of metrics were defined to measure progress against deliverables in support of the CRP phases.
SAP was asked to review the design, and they came back with a recommendation that was supported by several members of the team. But the consulting firm leading the project had been following a rigid implementation road map and were unwilling to concede and change their approach.
The mentality of most integrators is to stick to a tried-and-true methodology. But this can also lead to trouble. Predefined work plans tend to promote a 'best practices' mentality. Consultants configure the system based on what they've done in the past, and then the customer adapts to standard processes.
Property Management is a relatively new vertical market for SAP and customers are still learning how to configure the system to best facilitate the functionality and reporting mechanisms.
The proposed design required frequent changes to the organization structure as buildings were acquired and sold. This complicated the setup process somewhat, but the downstream processes and reporting features required less work to configure.
When this new approach was accepted, a new team was assembled. Immediately, we went about developing a flexible work plan around Conference Room Pilot (CRP) phases. An MDM expert was also brought on to develop a data governance policy and integrate master data management processes with organization structure changes within SAP.
The new approach worked as expected. Following the old plan, users were unclear on whether the proposed design would work and felt uncomfortable with the process. But now they were responsible for leading the CRP sessions and were able to see the impact of their design decisions first-hand.
Within a few weeks, all the teams were aligned to the new work plan and a simple set of metrics were defined to measure progress against deliverables in support of the CRP phases.
About the Author:
If you are facing a stalled or failed IT project, give us a call. A comprehensive IT project assessment can be conducted in a day or two. You'll then have the insight and strategy to correct the problems and get back on track. Also check out our Business Intelligence for the Mid-market try before you buy, low risk service.
Posts
