Blueprint? RDS don’t need no stinkin’ Blueprint

Strong SAP SDN post by Mark Chaffen on SAP RDS (Rapid Deployment Solutions) and the case of the missing Blueprint.   I’ve only started to dig in to the topic, so these are my (likely half-baked) first thoughts: On balance “no Blueprint” is good.  Its exclusion reinforces that a RDS implementation is of a fixed, limited scope.  There must always be [...]

Using analogy to communicate complexity

Glen Alleman posts here on the need to ensure that analogies fit the domain.  He notes a common problem with metaphors, especially those adapted from math or science.  They sound right to the layman, but are off-key to the expert. This insight provoked a few thought on analogies in the ERP world.  We often use analogies to convey [...]

Krigsman’s 2012 trends: three quick takes

The always valuable Michael Krigsman (@mkrigsman, IT failures blog here) weighs in with a 2012 prediction: that rapid implementation will get more sustained focus.  I believe that there has been considerable progress over the years in improving both ERP implementations and ERP sustainability (see here for a bit of the bad old days).  However, there’s room [...]

ERP isn’t still this scary

Glen Alleman passed along this link on the ERP paradox, which appears to be that: the end result of ERP implementations is often the opposite: less control, and efficiency; and even though the number of applications may be reduced, this advantage is often offset by the cost and effort of maintaining ERP systems. Unfortunately, the [...]

SAP SME Portfolio Précis

Yesterday, softwareadvice.com tossed Don Fornes’ post on SAP’s SME solutions over the Crossderry transom.  All-in-all it is a good overview, with a couple of caveats: Industry coverage of the SAP Business Suite and All-in-One is depicted as equal and that’s a stretch.  Perhaps I need to brush up on my SAP release strategy, but I [...]

Podcast Link — Enterprise IT: Inside an SAP customer

Here’s the promised link — Enterprise IT: Inside an SAP customer — to my recent podcast w/ Michael Krigsman.  I’ll elaborate a bit on f these themes in future posts.  As I mentioned earlier, the interview stoked my blogging fire again!

SAP’s Sleeping Product Giant

Michael Krigsman and I had a chance to chat last week — he recorded a podcast w/ me that will be up on his blog before too long — and thankfully the chat got my blogging mojo going again.  I don’t want to steal our podcast’s thunder, so I’ll focus on a tangent from our [...]

SAP’s product side is the problem

Dennis Byron here gives the most succinct gloss I’ve seen on the challenge before Hasso: Hasso Plattner wants to drive a great deal of technological innovation at SAP, and did not believe it could happen under Leo’s leadership, and without Hasso’s very direct involvement…. The product organization is full of conflicting technologies, conflicting interests, and [...]

Don’t bad mouth SAP project managers to me!

When I was a SAP engagement manager, many SAP customers used to complain to me about SAP’s project management capabilities with the lament: If only you could manage projects as well as your implementation partners do! I always thought that jab at SAP was hooey.  And now that I am a customer of two SAP [...]

Why SAP ramp-ups are hard to get into

Another note from the Dave Rosenberg post on cloud services (Dave’s post here)  inked to in my last post on software engineering (my post here).  I was often asked why SAP made it so hard to enter ramp-ups for new or upgraded solutions.  The answer is pretty simple and Dave put the reason succinctly in his post: [...]