White Paper. How to Implement SAP Solution Manager. The non-technical requirements to ensure adoption. IBIS America, LLC

Transcription

1 How to Implement SAP Solution Manager The non-technical requirements to ensure adoption IBIS America, LLC The Reverse Business Engineering Company for SAP customers

2 Contents Executive Summary... 3 Identify, Educate and Empower a Core Team... 4 Outline a High-level Strategy and Roadmap focused on Business Benefit... 4 Create your Business Blueprint structure... 5 Build-Out Content... 6 Use Solution Manager to support your next SAP Project... 7 About the Author IBIS America LLC Page 2 of 8

3 Executive Summary The SAP methodology for system implementation and continuous improvement is now delivered by the SAP Solution Manager platform, along with additional methods and tools to support all processes within the framework of Application Lifecycle Management (ALM). The platform provides a holistic approach for SAP customers, by housing this content alongside the methods and tools needed to Run SAP like a Factory i.e., SAP s best practice to address the operational demands in managing SAP systems from a central platform. This centralized, process-oriented framework delivers a Single Source of Truth to empower the IT organization to be successful. Figure 1: Application Lifecycle Management and Run SAP like a Factory using SAP Solution Manager Since Solution Manager is specifically designed for SAP customers and included in the SAP license agreement, IT organizations should do their due diligence and at a minimum evaluate how it might replace other in-house and/or third-party applications to reduce IT costs. However, many customers struggle with adopting the platform, aligning the functionality and content with their existing internal methodologies, and incorporating the methods and tools within their IT organizations. This white paper outlines recommendations for tackling the obstacles with a proven approach for successfully embracing the process-oriented platform provided by SAP Solution Manager. First, educate a core team and empower them to establish standards and procedures for usage; second, outline a high-level strategy and roadmap, focusing on components of the platform that provide a potential business benefit; third, create your Business Blueprint structure that outlines the standard business processes, organizational units and master data in-use as well as your custom processes and objects used; fourth, build-out the necessary content to support leveraging the platform for ALM; and finally, use the platform to support an existing project IBIS America LLC Page 3 of 8

4 Identify, Educate and Empower a Core Team Depending upon the size and structure of your IT organization, the core team makeup may vary. But representation from both the support and project delivery teams is important. Operational as well as functional members should participate, and if a separate Quality Assurance team is used then participation from that group is needed as well. Key members from all facets of the SAP team should be represented, including: Basis Security Functional Analyst/Configurator Technical Analyst/Developer Quality Assurance/Testing Project Manager Production Support The unique perspective offered by each member, based upon their skill set and responsibility, should be represented in order to fully cover requirements for the Solution Manager platform. Moreover, it will be easier to get your team to support the decisions made if they are a part of making them. This core team should be educated in the key components of the SAP Solution Manager platform, including a basic understanding of the ALM and Run SAP like a Factory processes. A more in-depth understanding of the technical requirements is needed so that informed decisions can be made. Finally, the team must be empowered to define the standards and procedures that will be used in building out content within the framework of Solution Manager. For instance, outlining a document strategy, determining strategy for utilizing projects (implementation, template, maintenance), solutions, change management (ChaRM), and incident management (Help Desk), etc. IBIS offers two approaches for educating your team: the IBIS Workshop for SAP Solution Manager and the IBIS Boot camp for SAP Solution Manager. The workshop offers 3 days of facilitated sessions; while the boot camp is 3 ½ days with hands-on exercises and a day of system prep. If an organization has already made the decision to utilize the Solution Manager platform, then the training approach is preferable. However, if an organization is struggling to justify the expense (time, resources) needed to move to the Solution Manager platform, a facilitated workshop works best and can lead to discovering alternative benefits to the business to build a business case for adopting the platform. Outline a High-level Strategy and Roadmap focused on Business Benefit A high-level strategy and roadmap should be outlined based upon targeted functionality. Input from the core team will guide discussions to pinpoint which ALM or operational process(es) warrant(s) the most impactful return and potential benefit to business partners. Take stock of the entire suite of processes supported, and outline where existing pain-points may be addressed IBIS America LLC Page 4 of 8

5 Figure 2: ALM and Run SAP like a Factory processes supported by Solution Manager (ref. service.sap.com/solutionmanager) Create your Business Blueprint structure The Business Blueprint is a 3-level hierarchical structure that should outline the scope of functionality supported by the IT organization. The Solution Manager platform provides content from which to source this structure, called the Business Process Repository (ref. And the 7.1 release of SAP Solution Manager introduces an automated approach to determine the standard SAP processes in-use that should comprise your Blueprint. Using the Solution Documentation Assistant and Reverse Business Process Documentation content, companies with MaxAttention, Enterprise Support, or PSLE maintenance agreements with SAP can automatically generate an initial baseline analysis of standard SAP scenarios, processes, master data and organizational units used. The resulting analysis can be used to create a Solution Manager project and initial Business Blueprint IBIS America LLC Page 5 of 8

6 Figure 3: Analysis Results from the Solution Documentation Assistant using RBPD content However, this analysis will represent just the SAP standard content. It is important that you customize this structure to reflect the complete Blueprint of not just standard but custom processes, transactions and programs as well. The SAP tools available for customizing your structure require an understanding of the Business Process Repository. Custom processes and assignments of custom transactions and programs must be manually determined, and may require a significant commitment of time and resources. IBIS offers services to jumpstart your use of this tool, customize the standard content with your custom objects (transactions, programs) and build a complete Business Blueprint structure. Whether you have 1,000 or 10,000 objects, IBIS can facilitate the customization requirements quickly and more accurately. The IBIS Starter Package for SAP Solution Manager 7.1 together with our RBE Plus Analyses will get you up and running with a working structure ready to take advantage of the platform. Build-Out Content The Business Blueprint structure in Solution Manager is designed to link the components of business processes together with the design documentation, SAP transactions, configuration documentation, SAP IMG objects, test scripts and training materials relevant for on-going Application Lifecycle Management. The core team should determine the documentation strategy that will guide the efforts in building out content against the Business Blueprint structure. Once the strategy is formed, companies may struggle with finding the right content to upload into the knowledge warehouse. IBIS offers Reverse Business Engineering services RBE Plus. These services automatically document the key functional areas of your SAP systems for you. The results of the RBE Plus Analyses take the guess-work out of what needs to be documented IBIS America LLC Page 6 of 8

7 Figure 4: RBE Plus automatic inventory of objects, enhancements and process variants. Using the results of an RBE Plus analysis, companies can better understand the custom processes, transactions, configuration and development objects that need to be reflected in their blueprint structure. And the IBIS education offerings empower your team to make the decisions, helping you to align your existing project methodology with the requirements of the SAP Solution Manager platform. Moreover, IBIS services can support you with automatically uploading content into the knowledge warehouse assigned to your project. Use Solution Manager to support your next SAP Project The best way to absorb the cost and effort involved in establishing SAP Solution Manager as a framework for Application Lifecycle Management is to position the set-up during the Project Preparation phase of your next SAP initiative. Follow the standards and procedures outlined by the core team, and then execute project management and methodology using the platform. By leveraging the platform during your next SAP project, you will be left with a substantial framework to support on-going SAP initiatives IBIS America LLC Page 7 of 8

8 About the Author Marci Braybrooks is a Senior Project Manager and Solution Manager consultant for IBIS America, LLC. Marci has more than 27 years of experience in IT, and has worked with SAP systems for over 15 years as a developer, configurator, and project manager. IBIS America, LLC, is the US-based sales, service, and support organization for IBIS Prof. Thome AG, the recognized leader and content partner for SAP in reverse business engineering (RBE), providing licensed tools and services for RBE Plus analyses to SAP customers worldwide. RBE and RBE Plus are registered trademarks of IBIS Prof. Thome AG. SAP, R/3 and Solution Manager are trademarks or registered trademarks of SAP AG in Germany and other countries worldwide. IBIS Prof. Thome AG, based in Wuerzburg, Germany was founded in 1994 and supports a wide variety of research and development projects, with a primary focus on SAP software and the tools and methods needed to successfully implement SAP Solutions. IBIS is the recognized leader in Reverse Business Engineering (RBE), providing licensed Tools and Services for RBE Plus analysis to SAP customers world-wide. IBIS Prof. Thome s primary goal is to develop and improve the methods, software tools and services necessary to continually enhance the integration of organization and information processing. In 2004, IBIS started a pilot program to deliver Tools and Services in support of RBE Plus analysis, targeted for SAP customers in U.S. and Canada. As a result of strong growth within North America since 2004, IBIS America LLC was formed in January 2007 to provide additional services and support for RBE Plus customers in U.S. and Canada. IBIS AG and IBIS America are committed to long-term partnerships with those de-siring to forge ahead in the area of innovative, practice-oriented research and project work. IBIS America LLC PO Box 241 Reeders, PA Phone FAX IBIS America LLC Page 8 of 8