- Gather the company business experts together to expose business and SAP priorities. Those priorities should be closely linked to what your customers want.
- Unlike Six Sigma projects, SAP tools can be a total game changer for certain areas of the company. Tools like electronic batch management or quality notifications can bring huge efficiencies if integrated well with your current SAP modules.
- Educating the user community prior launching a project is half the battle. If you have to fight the user community during an implementation project it makes implementing twice as hard.
- Data mining using standard Sap tools is a must for most companies with a mature SAP system. Many companies forget about standard reporting tools (like LIS) and make their reporting a customized free for all.
- Stop listening to the “experts” running around with their brilliant individual improvement recommendations. It should always be a group effort with strong governance to maintain an efficient and effective resolution to a problem.
- An efficient and effective resolution process should almost always have a strong ROI with financial estimates and mathematics to support a business case. Just stating “it will make the process more efficient” isn’t good enough. Or “this is a huge cost saver.” You have no idea how many times I’ve seen this.
- SAP projects from start to finish should be fun, motivating and inspiring from start to finish.
- There is always a technical solution. The issue usually is the business process behind it that makes things challenging. Have you thought about responsibilities, integration, effective data management or how to reverse the new process?
- If you don’t keep up to your competitor’s technology you will fall behind.
- Your user community will find more meaning and purpose in their jobs when they are trained to use SAP tools properly. Without proper training they will become frustrated and become a negative influence. Train them and train them well.