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PRINCE2 for SAP ERP implementations?

WaldemarFal
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I am preparing the post about experiences with PRINCE2 used to SAP ERP implementations but first I’d like to ask for your experiences. My thesis is that ASAP is set of best practices adopted to SAP implementations and it is fully sufficient and accurate for successful SAP implementations. PRINCE2 is complete method for administrating (control) of (mainly IT) projects in public sector and adopting it on the top of ASAP or replacing ASAP may produce interferences. It is trendy now to use PRINCE2 but (fortunately?) in practice the use of PRINCE2 by SAP ERP imlpelemntations is only PINO. What are your experiences?

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Answers (3)

WaldemarFal
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Dear Colleagues,

I am making now the project where I am merging PRINCE2 with ASAP and that’s works fine so far. I will make entries with experiences with this journey and will be happy to read your comments. Please look on my two entries about:

1. PRINCE2 as the project communication language (at least in Europe):

PRINCE2 for SAP implementations (including ERP)

2. Work Packages (as defined in PRINCE2) as the right vehicles for effective organization of the work on the project:

ASAP, PRINCE2 and EVA: Work Packages as the way to distribute effective the project work among time.

Thank you for your support!

Cheers

Waldek

Former Member
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Hi Waldemar,

As far I experienced, PRINCE2 gives more control over resources and keeps customer project manager in track from various aspects of projects such as Quality, Maintaining Goal etc...While ASAP gives control over project team and keeps team members in track, which helps them to get assurance. As you said earlier, I don't think any of them can work perfectly, So I would make a hybrid model to execute projects on right direction. You are right that we have to do lots of documentation and its time consuming but it gives assurance.

Regards,

Anmol

WaldemarFal
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I agree with all the comments however as I said there are traps when merging ASAP with PRINCE2 – a very good and sustainable project management is necessary to make it good.

My point is that ASAP is sufficient even in very big SAP implementations. In traditional approach (several years ago) the customer was “immersed” with ASAP on the beginning and than was smart enough to control the SAP project with ASAP “language”. Now the position of PRINCE2 is very strong so it is clear that SAP projects are controlled with this. What are your practical experiences – what are the advantages of  use of PRINCE by SAP implementation?

In my opinion the control of the project is not the target itself – the control is the tool to reach the project targets. So we have to measure the results - what was the gain by use of PRINCE2 as the methodology of control the SAP project? Can you evidence the difference as the projects were made without PRINCE2? Can you give please an practical example – maybe in blueprint as I think is most important part?

Former Member
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Waldemar,

PRINCE2, PMBOK, IPMA ICB, ASAP etc are all intended to provide us with the good practices of managing a project to meet its objectives. There is no silver bullet (like in any area) which will guarantee the project success. PRINCE2 focuses more on "what" while PMBOK focusing on "how". From my experience to define what approach is better the one should first understand a particular organization existing (accepted as a standard) PM methodology and practices.

For instance, in my organization most of the projects are managed with PRINCE2 (including SAP projects). So, we take PM methodology from PRINCE2, we take BPM approach (e.g. blueprinting) from ASAP and we take ALM/IT Service Management from ITIL. So, replacing PRINCE2 with ASAP would be impractical in my case.

From the other hand, I could imagine that if an organization does not have a strong IT house or does not have established PM/ITSM methodology, then, I would recommend to go with ASAP and use it as a basis not only for SAP projects but also as a foundation for overarching organizational PM, ITIL and SAP implementation processes and approaches.

Cheers,

Alexey

WaldemarFal
Active Participant
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Alexey,

Thank you for the comment. Since it is my area of me deep evaluation can I ask you for more details like for example project chart of any SAP implementation (no matter what in particular) with use of PRINCE2? With some indicators like persons involved etc… You are writing about internal projects?

I fully agree that the purpose of the project is to reach target with right effort and in line with time and budget. My thesis – but I am not the prisoner of it – is that today many methodologies and sets of rules are making this more complicated like it was dozen years ago. That what you are writing may show that I am completely wrong so it will be very interesting for me to see more.

Best regards

Waldemar

Former Member
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Waldemar,

More complicated you say, sure, in essence it is the same good old stuff. Maybe with couple of remarks - in today’s world you have to pay attention to growing complexities of globalization, BPO, multinationals, multiculturalism and so on. A chain is only as strong as its weakest link, nowadays, you can not take lightly any aspect of project management: stakeholders management (matrix organizations, customers, vendors., customer vendors), team management (telecommuting virtual teams all over the globe in different time zones), procurement and vendor management (outsourcing, SaaS), business case and value management (competition is tough - cost savings, value for money, ROI), legal and compliance (numerous data protection laws different from country to country), you name it.

Back to the real life project example - here is an orgchart of SAP project. As you can see it mostly had PRINCE2-compliant structure (Steering Committee = Project Board).

And now the interesting part. Project Management approach was in general following company-wide PRINCE2 standard rather than ASAP. For example:

  • There was a project board established with Exec, SS and SU. Project governance (roles and responsibilities, escalation procedures, approval gates etc) mostly was according to PRINCE2
  • Product Delivery (work packages authorization, acceptance etc) was following PRINCE2 approach, because organizational processes around vendor management and staffing were also aligned with PRINCE2
  • Change Control and Risk Management were based on PRINCE2 approach, because change advisory/approval boards and risk assessment committees within the organization were built in accordance with PRINCE2
  • Business Case and Value Management were based on PRINCE2 approach (even though in ASAP you probably find even more detailed information on value management).

At the same time:

  • Project phasing (or staging in PRINCE2 terminology) was taken from ASAP (preparation, blueprint, realization …), because it was SAP project, so, it would be impractical not to use ASAP phases
  • Particular work packages/tasks (like HW sizing, Interface Inventory, RICEFW design and implementation, Legacy Data Migration etc) were taken from ASAP – again, it was SAP project and we had to deal with Business Process design, RICEF design, data migration etc and PRINCE2 does not bother itself with those details. PRINCE2 also is not concerned with testing strategies, production cutover, end user training, so we used (mostly) ASAP guidelines in those areas 

All in all, in my case, ASAP and PRINCE2 coexisted peacefully and complemented each other nicely.

Cheers,

Alexey

WaldemarFal
Active Participant
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Thank you Alexey,

I need some time to consider your answer. I will be back soon!

Regards

Waldek

WaldemarFal
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Dear Alexey,

It took some time but I am back and I Am just now making SAP Project with both ASAP and PRINCE2. It is not exactly ERP – it is SAP HR-PA and ERECRUIT. That coexistence as you wrote is fully peacefully and ASAP and PRINCE2 complemented each other.

I will like to share much more on my thread under the same name. First I like to discuss that you wrote:

  • Project phasing (or staging in PRINCE2 terminology) was taken from ASAP (preparation, blueprint, realization …), because it was SAP project, so, it would be impractical not to use ASAP phases

There is no need to change the phases of ASAP since they are technical stages from PRINCE2 point of view. You can use them both with PRINCE2 management stages. The same is with workpackages. And it is working very fine on my project.

Cheers

Waldek

Former Member
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Good to hear from you Waldek,

You are absolutely right - those two are complimentary. Yep, PRINCE2 management stages and work packages are different from technical stages - they can have 1-to-1 or m-to-n relationships and can be aligned or can run in parallel with some overlaps.

Cheers,

Alexey

Former Member
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Hi Waldemar,

glad you are willing to share your plans with the rest of us and i agree that ASAP is sufficient for Agile, PMBOK, and probably PRINCE2 methods. i think it's good to know all of them, but the knowledge itself is not sufficent for successful execution of all projects, big and small. IMHO, they serve as a good starting point and health check during the execution of the plans and may work better within a particular management style, but not in absolute terms.

my 2 cents,

greg

WaldemarFal
Active Participant
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Gregory, thanks for comment. This is my area of research. I am looking now on my experiences since beginning in 1995 with the origin of ASAP (SAP Procedure Model) and try to make observations. The possibly target is to write some kind of SAP implementation handbook. I am hunting for failures to find the reason as you know.

My observation is that starting the project on general level with for example the rules from PMBOK will have its cost in additional time needed - are the advantages worth of it? I will be grateful full for your experiences!

Former Member
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Hi Waldemar,

This is a very interesting question.

In my understanding ASAP is an implementation methodology, while Prince2 is a project management methodology. They are therefore not covering the same processes, but are meant to cover different parts of the implementation project. The ASAP method covers which "technical" products to produce (DPP, EDD, IDD etc.), while Prince 2 covers the management of ASAP (like "Risk management", "Stakeholder management", "Scope management" etc.).

I'm looking for a guideline/overview of how the two methodologies intersect with each other. This would then answer questions like: "Which ASAP products should be completed at the end of X Prince2 phase?"

Have you ever come across such an overview?

WaldemarFal
Active Participant
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Dear Casper,

thank you - I will come with wider reflection later now just short info that my experiences with use of both methods (ASAP and PRINCE2) are bad. You are right - ASAP is for vendor where PRINCE2 is for control of the project by customer. However implementing ERP by ASAP is some kind of commodity where in PRINCE you have to define a lot of project details and that makes first "reinventing the wheel" and - what worser - a lot of bad interferences since PRINCE2 has different construction. In my opinion that is very low sense in use of PRINCE2 for ASAP driven project.

You can find many interesting aspects in the discussion I joined several months ago:

http://www.linkedin.com/groups?search=&answerCategory=myans&gid=2775

Regards

Waldemar

janmusil
Product and Topic Expert
Product and Topic Expert
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Casper,

a clarification of your statement

"In my understanding ASAP is an implementation methodology, while Prince2 is a project management methodology. They are therefore not covering the same processes, but are meant to cover different parts of the implementation project."

Note that ASAP while it covers the solution and technical side of the SAP solution it also covers PM process, tools and techniques based on PMI PMBOK. ASAP has been certified to be 100% compliant with OPM3 framework and covers all the PMBOK knowledge areas. I hope this is helpful information.

Best Regards, Jan

Former Member
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Jan,

Good point... I was actually not aware, that ASAP has been certified compliant with OPM3. Thank you for that info.

Nevertheless, I believe that there is a difference between an implementation method that contains the individual tools as described in PMBOK (e.g. Risk management) and management method that provides guidance to manage these tools. As an example ASAP describes how a risk matrix is to be produced in order to inform your steering committee, but it does not contain anything about how to handle your communication with steering committee about release of budget for the next project phase.

I therefore believe that the two methods are complementary to each other.

Best regards,

Casper

janmusil
Product and Topic Expert
Product and Topic Expert
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Casper,

You make a good point. We have aligned ASAP with PMI PMBOK which is not as specific as to advise how to ask for release of the budget or does not prescribe governance details. It just states that you need governance and gives you few examples. ASAP is more prescriptive than PMBOK and provides templates and guides specific to context of SAP project. But we do not go to individual management style level detail though this may change in the future as this is something we cover internally for our Project Managers in guides and training.

Jan

WaldemarFal
Active Participant
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Dear Casper,

now only short to your point - as you can see Alexey is giving the example how to merge. I thing there is no conflict between ASAP and PRINCE2. The problem may be that this two are in some layers different and that differences may disturb.

The other questions is: are SAP implementations worth to be named "projects" or are they some kind of rutine replicable work? Are they still uniqual and so on what creates risk? If yes the use of PRINCE2 may strengthen the control. If not the use of PRINCE2 and in conequence the control is overdriven and  the implementation has bigger cost.