Abstract: The BLOG post emphasizes the importance of fundamentals and principles for successful project management and reminds us that they are often neglected.
SAP projects often get into trouble because not all the necessary questions have been answered in full beforehand and documented in agreement and unambiguously with all partners (especially system integrators) and stakeholders.
THE FOLLOWING QUESTIONS MUST BE ANSWERED:
– What is to be achieved? (Project objectives in all aspects)
– How is this to be achieved? (Project implementation in all aspects)
– How is it ensured that the right result is achieved? (Project controls)
I am aware that these are very banal questions and their prior answer should be a matter of course. But obviously it is not. At least I haven’t found such a thing in any project that I had taken over and didn’t set up myself. Quite the opposite: not too long ago I took on a project that was jointly set up by three experienced project managers (a total of > 50 years of experience). The project objective I was told was: “We want to introduce SAP”. But it was nowhere described how this was to be achieved! So for two years, a small army of SAP consultants had done something that could hardly be traced, which had nothing to do with the meaningful achievement of goals.
THE BINDING PROJECT MANUAL
For me it has proven to be very useful to regulate these questions in a binding manner for all project participants in the project manual. The project manual typically has the following main chapters in my projects:
1. measures to ensure that we are doing the right thing
2. measures to ensure proper implementation
3. measures to achieve the right result
An SAP project should not be approved for implementation by the bodies responsible for the budget until all the above questions have been answered completely, conclusively and comprehensibly; if the questions in a project manual have been answered, budget approval can be achieved excellently by approving the same. Thus it would also be regulated under which “rules of the game” the money may be spent.
I will use this structure as a basis for the future articles in this blog and offer you simple and pragmatic procedures and tools.