The SAP/Oracle Choice re: Integration

With the release of SAP Business Suite 7, the debate about the SAP and Oracle integration strategies has heated up.  Loraine Lawson at IT Business Edge (here) uses two posts by Ray Wang (here) and Dan Woods (here), to contrast the two approaches.
Of course, I agree with Lawson and Woods that the SAP approach is better [...]

Is this really a tech vendor secrecy problem?

I know, I know…I’ve been remiss on posting.  All I have are very lame excuses that I won’t give.
Just saw this article “Global CIO: Tech Vendors’ Secrecy Hinders Innovation” and I’m still not sure what to make of it.  Perhaps we can blame the copy editor for the headline, because the author raises some issues that [...]

Using SCRUM with ASAP

Ron Stanton sent me a mail asking how SCRUM works with our implementation methodology — ASAP for Implementation. While SAP does have a SCRUM methodology that we use — SAPScrum — it is an internal approach used for solution development.  SAPScrum is pretty straight SCRUM, so there’s no mystery to it.
We just started a project [...]

BI, Deliverables, and Change Control

This post may court the Business Week curse, but I’m highlighting this story on BI and the recession (here) as the jumping off point for a couple of observations.  Rob T.’s comment in the piece (sorry, but I can’t link directly) notes that:
Unlike ERP, BI can be implemented step-wise, first in targeted, strategic areas, and then [...]

SAP PMO Webcast Recording

As a follow up, over 250 people attended last week’s SAP PMO webcast (original post here) hosted by Keith Johnson, the VP for the SAP North America PMO VP and Jim Curry, Program Delivery Director.  It’s always great to have a customer — in this case, Kelly Gear, Senior Program Manager, Johns Manville — confirm [...]

Surviving PMO Success — Establish an innovation model

During my keynote on “Lessons from a Mature PMO on Sustaining Success”, I spent a considerable amount of time discussing one of the pitfalls of success: becoming satisfied with what was already in place. For example, some global PMO services stopped evolving and improving. Our regions felt like they had to build their own improvements [...]

SAP Solution Manager to document your SAP solution

One of the most important — but underused — features of SAP Solution Manager is the ability to document SAP solutions and the processes enabled by the solutions. It seems like a no-brainer to have documentation and configuration together in one system, including for partner components, custom code and interfaces.
As part of the SAP Solution Manager [...]

SAP Solution Manager Enterprise Edition — Broadcast Series

If you’re in the SAP ecosystem, you’ve probably heard about the new capabilities that SAP Solution Manager Enterprise Edition delivers.   The product management team for SAP Solution Manager will offer a series of virtual presentations ranging from an overview down to the Expert Guided Implementation service for SAP Solution Manager.  These sessions are available on [...]

Building an SAP PMO — Webcast

Keith Johnson — the VP of SAP’s North America PMO — hosts a webcast on Achieving Operational Excellence Through a Project Management Office.  The webcast is free, though you’ll have to register in advance (registration form here).  Registrants will receive a complimentary copy of the SAP Consulting Solution Brief: Program and Project Management Services.  Here’s [...]

SAP Business Suite 7.0 — life w/out upgrades?

I haven’t a chance to dig into the details of SAP Business Suite 7, but it looks very promising w/r/t implementation costs and other TCO drivers. The enhancement package approach was a great start, but the new Business Suite should be a more comprehensive breaking of “the upgrade barrier” (per Ed Toben of Colgate-Palmolive).
Here [...]