Lean and Agile SAP

Lean and Agile SAP
September 28, 2015

This document is protected under the copyright laws of the United States and/or other countries as an unpublished work. This
document contains information that is proprietary and confidential to Genesis Consulting Partners, LLC and/or affiliates or its
technical alliance partners. Information in this document shall not be duplicated, used, or disclosed in whole or in part. Any use
or disclosure in whole or in part of this information without the express written permission of Genesis Consulting Partners, LLC
and/or its affiliate(s) is prohibited.
© 2015 Genesis Consulting Partners, LLC and/or its affiliate(s) (Unpublished). All rights reserved. The Accelerate methodology is a
component of Genesis Consulting Partners, LLC implementation content and contains processes, templates and techniques used
to deliver Genesis Consulting Partners, LLC services.
2

• Welcome and Introduction
• Overview of Lean Thinking Principles and Agile Techniques
• Key benefits of a Lean and Agile SAP implementation
• Customer Success Stories: Learn how they used Lean and
Agile to Deliver Amazing Results
• Getting Started: What it takes for your team to become
Lean and Agile
Contents
© Genesis Consulting, LLC www.genesisconsulting.com3

Welcome and Introductions
Jason Fair
• CEO, Genesis Consulting
• 22+ years of industry experience leading SAP
software implementations
• Started career as an SAP Customer and implemented
Financials on SAP Version 2.1H
• SAP Functional expert, Technical development, Integration Management
and extensive Project Management
• Agile SAP Coach and Executive Advisor for past 5 years
• PMP, CSM, Certified SAP Consultant, CPA
• Thought leader for Lean Agile SAP
• Enjoy spending time with my 4 kids and skiing, triathlons, and traveling.

Genesis Consulting
We specialize in delivering the following services:
SAP Technology:
• Strategy and Planning
• Project Management
• Systems Integration and SAP Consulting
• Industry Solutions
Advisory Services
Lean Agile Coaching
Business Intelligence and Analytics
Organizational Change Management
Recognized by Inc. Magazine in September 2013 as
the 270th Fastest Growing Company in America, 27th Fastest Growing IT Services Firm

Waterfall vs. Agile –
Delivering Incremental Value
Preparation
Blueprint
Realization
Final Prep
Go-Live
Sprint 1 Sprint 2 Sprint 3 Sprint 4 Sprint 5 Sprint 6 Sprint 7 Sprint 8
Release #1
Waterfall
AGILE
Release #3Release #2
2 wks 2 wks 2 wks 2 wks 2 wks 2 wks 2 wks 2 wks

Agile
Approach
ASAP
“Waterfall”
Waterfall to Iteration

A Lean and Agile Approach to ERP
Lean Thinking
• Eliminate Waste
• Pull From Demand – Focus
on business value
• Empower Workers
• Enable Continuous
Improvement
Some Agile Techniques
• Frequent inspection and adaptation
• Aligning development with customer needs &
company goals
• Co-location
• Self-organization and accountability
• Becoming a team player
• Elimination of “waste” and “ceremony”
• Empirical demonstration of results
• Customer is always present
• Product managers and owners
• 5 planning events: product planning,
release/feature planning, iteration planning,
sprint review, and stand-ups
Agile is a
journey, not a
destination.

• Feature Sets versus Process Sets
• Not necessarily promoting “code” to production after each sprint
• Coding vs. Configuration
• Complexity of Business Requirements
• Diverse set of skills required to complete ERP Process Sets
• Introduction of integration sprints
• Concurrent “Support” teams with dependencies
• Systems Administration
• Security
• Organizational Change
• Quality Assurance / Testing
• Training / Deployment
Application Development vs. SAP

Agile Foundations
Release Planning
– Sprint Zero
Team decides
which task will
be worked on
Iteration Length 1 – 4
Weeks

Kanban Board
Courtesy David J. Anderson & Associates, Olav Maassen QNH
5 4 43 2 2
Flow
Input
Queue
Dev
Ready In Prog Done
Build
Ready
Test Release
Ready
Stage Prod.
DoneIn Prog
DevelopmentAnalysis

Delivering SAP Business Process Solutions

Common SAP Business Process
• Vendor Information is
maintained in the
Financial System
• Payment terms for
vendors are
maintained in financial
system
• Products or Materials
commonly procured
are maintained in a
material master
• Inventory items are
defined with storage
locations and minimum
and maximum ordering
levels
• Users define what
needs to be procured
for business needs
• Managers approve
Purchase Requisitions
(ECC) or Shopping Carts
(SRM)
• Financial Information is
added to requirement
by user
• Real time funds
availability check in
financial system
• Standard reports
available for
monitoring budget
• Procurement department
determines if requirements
are sourced or if existing
contract vehicle can be
utilized
• Approved requirements
can be sourced to the
following:
• Contracts
• RFx’s
• PO’s
• e-Sourcing happens in SRM
for bidding on RFx
Documents
• Purchase Orders and
Contracts can be replicated
to Financial System
• Users receive goods or
services
• Service entry sheet or a
goods receipt is
entered in SRM or ECC
• Confirmation
documents are
replicated to the
financial system when
done in SRM
• Second step in the
three way match
• Partial receipt is
available
• Quality of goods or
services analyzed
• Vendors submit
invoices to financial
department
• AP enters invoice
document in financial
system
• System validates
existing PO or Contract
exists and validates
goods or services have
been received
• Invoice posts once
three way match is
validated
• Payment sent to
vendor in payment run
Requisition to Check Process

Release
Theme 1
Theme 2
Theme
n…
Theme
Epic 1
Epic 2
Epic n…
Epic 1
(aka. Feature)
Story 1
Story 2
Story n…
Story 1
Task 1
Task 2
Task n…
Task 1
 Maintain an iterative process of analysis to
continually refine and decompose Requirements
into discrete units of work
 Level of Effort (LOE) estimates are iteratively
refined as decomposition reveals new information
(gaps, complexities, redundancies, etc…)
Process Level 1 / 2*
i.e. work stream and/or core functionality
Blueprint Document level
i.e. Create a Service Order
Detailed Requirement /
Process Step level
i.e. Create Services Order for
Services < $10,000
Unit of Work
• Configure Order Type
• Develop BAPI
*May be a Business
Requirement, RICEFW,
Configuration, etc…
Process Level 2
i.e. Requisition to Check Process
Business Process / Requirements Decomposition

Decomposition of ERP Process
• Vendor Information is
maintained in the
Financial System
• Payment terms for
vendors are
maintained in financial
system
• Products or Materials
commonly procured
are maintained in a
material master
• Inventory items are
defined with storage
locations and minimum
and maximum ordering
levels
• Users define what
needs to be procured
for business needs
• Managers approve
Purchase Requisitions
(ECC) or Shopping Carts
(SRM)
• Financial Information is
added to requirement
by user
• Real time funds
availability check in
financial system
• Standard reports
available for
monitoring budget
• Procurement department
determines if requirements
are sourced or if existing
contract vehicle can be
utilized
• Approved requirements
can be sourced to the
following:
• Contracts
• RFx’s
• PO’s
• e-Sourcing happens in SRM
for bidding on RFx
Documents
• Purchase Orders and
Contracts can be replicated
to Financial System
• Users receive goods or
services
• Service entry sheet or a
goods receipt is
entered in SRM or ECC
• Confirmation
documents are
replicated to the
financial system when
done in SRM
• Second step in the
three way match
• Partial receipt is
available
• Quality of goods or
services analyzed
• Vendors submit
invoices to financial
department
• AP enters invoice
document in financial
system
• System validates
existing PO or Contract
exists and validates
goods or services have
been received
• Invoice posts once
three way match is
validated
• Payment sent to
vendor in payment run
Requisition to Check Process Theme
Epics
Story

Story Mapping
time
activity
task
sub-tasks or
task details
• Represents business process flow and steps with tasks and activities
• Discuss the steps of the process with candidate users
• Record tasks as they say them
• Rearrange tasks and insert tasks as you clarify the big story
• Add activities as you identify them from discussion
necessity
• For a user to successfully engage in this activity, is it necessary they
perform this task? If it’s not absolutely necessary, how critical is it?
* From Jeff Patton at Agile Product Design

Story Mapping * – Release Planning
• Choose coherent groups of features that consider the span of business
functionality and user activities
• Support all necessary activities with the first release
• Improve activity support and add additional activities with subsequent
releases
timeoptionality
necessary
less
optional
more
optional
first release
second release
third release

18
Story Mapping
User Story Mapping is an approach to
Organizing and Prioritizing user stories
© Genesis Consulting, LLC www.genesisconsulting.com

Lean Agile SAP Customer Case Study

Proof of Concept
• 10 year SAP customer
• Full SAP suite of applications (FI/CO, MM, HR/Payroll, etc.)
• Active production support team
• Portfolio of on-going continuous improvement projects
• Developed Lean Agile SAP Proof of Concept with Genesis
• Selected Performance Management Project
• Defined scope, selected resources
• Legislative mandate to automate performance appraisals
• 3 weeks behind schedule before Lean Agile SAP
• Implement EP and Performance Appraisals

Lean Agile to Manage COTS Initiatives
• Visual
Management
approach
• Promotes self-
management
• Transparency of
assigned work
• Facilitates
teamwork and
cross-training
• Immediate
knowledge of
project status

POC Results
 Completed project 1 week ahead of schedule
 Team realized a 200% increase in productivity and efficiency
 Project validated that customer needs evolve
 Scope Changes –
 20% Adds
 18% Drops
 Process validated Lean Agile processes are adaptive
 Team was not disrupted by the scope changes
 Team adapted to change in just 4 sprints
 Customer, Team Members and Project Management
 Confirm empirical evidence is better that Progress Reports
 Scrum planning events free up significant time for teams to focus on “Value
Add” work
 Work products completed significantly faster
 Team habits have changed – becoming “Lean Thinkers”
 Client now deploying Lean Agile approach across portfolio of SAP Projects
Change is an Asset and Not a Liability

"Having the business decision-makers in the room to answer my questions in a timely manner, as well
as to make decisions right when I needed them, was very powerful. In the past seven days, I saved one
week’s worth of work." – SAP Developer
“This team was able to get three weeks worth of work done in just one week by using this Lean Agile
SAP approach." – Business Process Specialist
"By being collocated there is a higher awareness of each of the team members' contributions
towards the project's common goal. This has helped us as a project team have clearer communication
on levels we don’t normally have" – NetWeaver Analyst
"Post production support will be much easier and quicker, because the support people have been
involved from the beginning and truly understand what we will be delivering on go-live" – Business
SME
"This process requires that we demonstrate our work every few weeks. The project stakeholders are
now so much more informed about what we are doing, and the business is more prepared for what
we will be delivering to them when we go live." – Configuration Analyst
"I was just so impressed. Everyone was so happy and proud when they demonstrated their work to the
stakeholders after each iteration" – Project Manager
“Before this process, I was uncertain how this project would get done in time. Now I am comfortable
that we will get it done in time.” – Business SME
Customer Testimonials
SAP project teams are realizing up to 250% increase in productivity and efficiency.

Expanding Lean Agile to
Manage ERP Operations

Major CPG Global Company
• 12 year SAP customer
• Full SAP suite of applications including: FI/CO, MM, Planning,
Manufacturing, Warehouse Management, Transportation
• Project to deploy Baseline SAP template to European countries
• New to Agile – Pilot project for SAP in Agile
• Portfolio of on-going and competing continuous improvement
projects
• Completed Agile Assessment and then developed Lean Agile SAP
Delivery Framework with Genesis
• Kicked off project with 170 team members and 13 work streams all
using Agile, Kanban

Scope Decomposition – Story Mapping

Executive Steering Committee
Business LT IT LT
Project Leadership
Program
Director
Product Teams
Scrum
Master
Product
Team
Business LT/IT LT: Supports the Project Director
and provides direction and course-correction
where necessary.
Executive Steerco: Provides continuous
direction and course-correction where
necessary.
Operational Steerco: Key decision makers
(Product Owners and IT Solution Owners) to
support the teams and provide leadership for
making scope and design decisions and issue
resolution.
IT
Lead
Business
Lead
Project Leadership Team: Ultimate responsibility
for the delivery of the project that delivers
solutions that the Operational Steerco accepts
and operates after project closure.
Scrum
Master
Product
Team
Scrum
Master
Product
Team
Operational Steering Committee
IT Solution
Owner
Product
Owner
IT Solution
Owner
Product
Owner
IT Solution
Owner
Product
Owner
Change
Director
Solution
Architect
Roles and Responsibilities
Program Management Team: Responsible for
overall program management and support for
the project team including:
- Managing the governance of the project
- Risk and Issue Management
- Project Reporting
- Financial Management
- Project Administration
IT
Lead
Business
Lead
IT
Lead
Business
Lead
Program
Manager
Program
Support
Program
Management Team

Project - Teams
Planning and
Mfg.
Supply
Planning
Warehouse
Management
Order to Cash
Transportation
Management
Finance
Organizational
Change
Management
Development WebMethods Master Data
Field IT Technical BI/Reporting Testing
Support Teams:
• Comprised of IT and
Business team members.
• Support Functional teams.
• Teams are integrated with
functional teams.
• Support functional teams
in daily scrums, sprint
planning, and sprint
reviews.
• Participate in Scrum of
Scrums and Integration
meetings as needed.
Core Teams:
• Comprised of IT and Business
team members.
• Drive the key business
process and solution
functionality for the project.
• Maintain product backlogs of
all items to be delivered as
part of their scope.
• Manage integration and
dependencies across other
core teams and to support
teams.

Project – Sprint Schedule
Legend of Sprint Events:
SR – Sprint Review
RET – Retrospective
SP – Sprint Planning
SOS – Scrum of Scrums
INT – Integration Meeting
BR – Backlog Refinement

30
• Full vision of scope of work – Visualizing the work
• All teams are working in iterations
• Stakeholders engaged on a regular basis for feedback
• Visual progress of product development – Never been done before
• Increased quality of the product
• Prioritizing scope based on business need – “Must Have”
• Significant reduction of scope and consolidation of requirements
• Originally planned work and estimates based on prior projects are taking
significantly less time
• Streamlined 14 traditional project documents into 4 key documents
• Streamlined testing activities to include automated testing and integrated
testing events.
• Collaboration between teams has improved integration and quality of solution
• Improved relationships between IT and Business – Building Trust
Key Benefits to Date

31
ASAP 8 for Agile Projects

SAP Activate
• SAP Activate is on SAP Jam Site

A Lean Approach to Implementing SAP

How Do I get Started???
• Conduct an Agile Readiness and Cultural Assessment
• Where are you on the “Spectrum of Agility”?
• Identify the Executive Champion(s)
• Be flexible in creating a model that works for the culture of the
organization
• Consider varying steps of adoption (it’s a journey…)
• Select the right first project – Not all projects are good candidates
for Agile
• Define scope well – Consider Design Thinking Techniques
• Train the team – at all levels
• Develop a Product Council that is willing to work

• Project Characteristics
• Requirements
• Effort/Duration
• Interfacing Systems (3 or less)
• Regulatory Compliance
• Project Inter-dependencies
• Sponsor Characteristics
• Sponsor buy-in
• Sponsor time commitment
• Training for Agile
• Periodic Validation
• End User Adoption
Agile Readiness -
Is Your COTS/ERP Team Ready for Agile?
• Project Resources
– Team size
– Resource Dedication
– Technology / Business Domain
knowledge
– Collaboration
– Collocation
– Testing – automated
• Agile Awareness and Acceptance
– Training at all levels
– Ability to apply agile techniques for all
aspects of the project
– Coaches are available – do not do it
alone

Innovate, Ideate, Iterate…
Design Thinking + Agile Delivery
• Innovate – Motivate
teams with diverse
backgrounds to
collaborate and solve
problems
• Ideate – Turn ideas into
action
• Iterate – Prototype and
deliver the product
Understand
Observe
Define a
Point of View
Ideate
Prototype
Test
Deliver
Iterate
There is no Innovation without Implementation!

Deliver Innovative Results
Agile
Innovate
Ideate
Iterate

Agile ERP Success Factors
• Find the right Product Owner and engage Stakeholders
• Focus on Team Work over mechanics
• Collaboration over co-location
• Building the Backlog – Story Mapping and Stories
• Set rules of engagement for the team
• Selecting the right metrics and the right reporting tools
• Align team and individual performance metrics to tangible
project goals

Agile ERP Success Factors
• Conduct Agile Readiness and Cultural Assessments
• Identify the Executive Champion(s)
• Be flexible in creating a model that works for the culture of the
organization
• Consider varying steps of adoption (it’s a journey…)
• Select the right first project – Not all projects are good candidates
for Agile
• Train the team – at all levels
• Develop a Product Council that is willing to work

Approach to Lean and Agile ERP
40© Genesis Consulting, LLC www.genesisconsulting.com
Conduct Agile
Assessment and
Build Delivery
Framework
Train Team Plan Project Implement
• Complete a Readiness
Assessment to identify
areas of risk to introducing
Lean and Agile
• Develop an overall strategy
to introduce Lean and Agile
and build a delivery
framework that addresses:
team structure, governance,
roles and responsibilities,
testing, documentation,
release management, tools
• Develop a Communication
and Training Plan
• Develop an overall
project/release schedule
• Define key objectives
and outline concepts for
training.
• Plan the training for
Executives and Team
Members
• Customize training
based on Delivery
Framework
• Develop the training
materials and exercises
for Agile Training and
Product Owner Training
• Schedule the training
• Deliver the training
• Conduct workshops focused
on defining the scope of the
project
• Complete Value Stream
analysis for key business
processes
• Conduct legacy application
analysis including short, mid,
and long term plans for each
application
• Decompose business
processes to build Story
Maps
• Develop initial release
strategy
• Develop initial product
backlogs
• Mobilize the team(s)
• Prepare the working
environment
• Establish the tools and
standards for project
• Team Kick-Off
• Refine the backlogs
• Establish team norms
• Start first iteration
1-2 Weeks 2-3 Days 2-4 weeks TBD

“Life is a continuous journey
of transformation.”

www.genesisconsulting.com
Blog: http://www.genesisconsulting.com/archives/category/blog
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/company/229924
Twitter: @GenesisSAP
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/GenesisConsultingPartnersLLC
YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/user/GenesisConsulting1
Connect with Genesis Consulting

e | jason.fair@genesisconsulting.com
t | 804.523.8007
w | www.genesisconsulting.com
CEO
5207 Hickory Park Drive, Suite E
Glen Allen, VA 23059
jason fair
e | nick.coticchia@genesisconsulting.com
t | 804.523.8007
w | www.genesisconsulting.com
Chief Operating Officer
5207 Hickory Park Drive, Suite E
Glen Allen, VA 23059
nick coticchia

Visit our website:
www.genesisconsulting.com

Lean and Agile SAP

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