Blog_Posts Archives

Feature planning in an agile SAP implementation

In one of our previous posts we talked about the core roles and basic team structure in an agile SAP implementation. We are now ready to take a look at one of the first steps in planning the implementation and assessing the work that will need to be done by each team – defining the project features.

A feature (aka epic or epic story) is the next level down from the overall project in that a single project contains one or more features. There is no black and white rule on what makes up a feature but here are some guiding principles that we try to utilize:

Anton Karnaukhov April 17, 2014

SAP Transportation Management 9: Early to the Party!

The BestXperts team appreciated the challenge from Woodgrain Millwork to not only guide them through a full rework of their Distribution processes and systems but to make the very new SAP Transportation Management (TM) 9 the hub of that solution. After months of site visits, planning and design sessions, coaching of the Woodgrain IT team and, of course, lots of configuration and development work, the new solutions had a successful go-live on June 3, 2013!

Mike O'Dell June 10, 2013

Agile Terminology for SAP Project Teams

We don\’t need to tell anyone who is used to working with SAP that getting the terminology right is often a daunting task. Agile project management brings with it a number of new terms that are critical to understand in order to be able to comprehend any of the detailed discussions on how agile can help you implement SAP solutions in a better way. These terms are by no means universal, but at BestXperts we do try to use the terminology that is most common in the agile circles, regardless if we are talking about SAP implementation projects or building a web application.

Anton Karnaukhov March 24, 2013

Team Structure in Agile SAP Implementation Projects

One of the first things that each software implementation project has to worry about is the general structure of the project team. We at BestXperts have tried a few different variations of project team composition over the years and can definitely attest to the fact that there is no canned project team setup that will work on every project.

Anton Karnaukhov March 24, 2013

Constriction to Force Ourselves to Create

As I was reading Mike Cohn\’s \”Agile Estimating and Planning\” for the last couple of days, I\’ve taken some notes that I thought were worth sharing and discussing. The later sections of the book really focus on the technical aspects of agile planning, such as using points for estimation, planning poker, release planning, etc, all of which I was already fairly familiar with. For me, most of the interesting observations were in the first half of Mike\’s book where estimating and planning is discussed in broader terms and contrasted with counter-part approaches in waterfall project management.

Anton Karnaukhov September 23, 2012

Things you SHOULDN’T do in an agile SAP implementation

It\’s one thing to have the desire to implement SAP software in an agile way, envisioning the benefits of significantly lower cost and much happier end-users. It is a whole other thing to actually make it happen, resisting the constant desire to fall back to the old waterfall ways of doing things. And have no doubt, that desire will be there for quite some time, like a juicy carrot on a stick – if only we could map the entire project in a Gantt chart, if only we could put a deadline on every task no matter how far out that task is, if only we could achieve precise estimates on anything and everything and compare them to actual time spent, then and only then we can take control of the project, determine exact go-live date and keep our executive management properly informed. Falling into this type of thinking in an agile project is very simple. Having the understanding, discipline and commitment to the core principles of agile throughout the entire project is often very difficult.

Anton Karnaukhov August 25, 2012

US needs to produce more native SAP professionals

To most people the term \”SAP\” is nothing more than a cryptic abbreviation. It is far from a household name. Few are aware of the fact that SAP is the largest business software company in the world. Even fewer know that roughly 65% of the world\’s business transactions run through an SAP system at one point or another. In many ways, SAP software runs the business world. And every year it runs more of it. On top of this, SAP software implementations are no longer reserved for billion dollar companies with deep pockets. We at BestXperts have a number of customers with roughly $100 million in annual revenue that have successfully implemented SAP and are able to run their business in a sustainable and flexible way. And once a company implements SAP it typically goes on a long-term cycle of optimization, streamlining and automation of business processes through the enhancement and use of additional functionality from SAP.

Anton Karnaukhov August 5, 2012

Do Tools Matter?

In a meeting last week, we got into a debate about the value of tools in an organization. Specifically, we were discussing the merits of our chosen IT demand management software and Agile Project Management tool and whether or not they can be credited with the increase in productivity that our group has achieved over the past few months. During this debate, the following statement was blurted out:

Tools don\’t matter.

Eric Vota June 20, 2012

Running SAP projects – the path from waterfall to agile

We at BestXperts did not adopt agile project management overnight. In fact, it took us years to come up with an approach that was both repeatable and scalable. At first we dispensed with the idea of massive upfront blueprinting and instead began to have many mini-cycles of blueprinting, realization and testing throughout the project. In the process, we started structuring our project schedules around “sprints” and conducting daily standups to facilitate active communication within project teams.

Anton Karnaukhov June 11, 2012

ERP for the modern age

Don\’t get me wrong, we at BestXperts are diehard SAP fans. After all, we earn our living by implementing SAP software. But there are times when we just can\’t stop ranting about SAP idiosyncrasies that drive us crazy. Most of these rants boil down to one common trend – SAP is unnecessarily difficult. Some of this stems from the fact that SAP has turned into a behemoth with a number of large acquisitions in the last 5 years which seems to have impacted SAP\’s ability to execute quickly and with acceptable level of quality. Other times we get really frustrated with SAP\’s \”enterprisy\” approach to such things as mobility and web services which feel very bloated when compared with the modern technologies and approaches used in those areas in the consumer space.

So we decided to do what we do best – dream a little. What would an ERP system look like if it was built today, in 2012, making use of the current trends and technological advancements in the software development space?

Anton Karnaukhov May 21, 2012