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This document is protected under the copyright laws of the United States and/or other countries as an unpublished work.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© 2015 Genesis Consulting Partners, LLC and/or its affiliate(s) (Unpublished).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
Contents

• 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

© Genesis Consulting, LLC 3 www.genesisconsulting.com

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, LLC 4 www.genesisconsulting.com

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
© Genesis Consulting, LLC 5 www.genesisconsulting.com
Waterfall vs. Agile –
Delivering Incremental Value

Waterfall
Preparation
Blueprint
Realization
Final Prep
Go-Live

Sprint 1 Sprint 2 Sprint 3 Sprint 4 Sprint 5 Sprint 6 Sprint 7 Sprint 8

2 wks 2 wks 2 wks 2 wks 2 wks 2 wks 2 wks 2 wks

AGILE

Release #1 Release #2 Release #3

© Genesis Consulting, LLC 6 www.genesisconsulting.com

Waterfall to Iteration

ASAP
“Waterfall”

Agile
Approach

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A Lean and Agile Approach to ERP

Lean Thinking Some Agile Techniques

• Eliminate Waste • Frequent inspection and adaptation
• Pull From Demand – Focus • Aligning development with customer needs &
on business value company goals
• Empower Workers • Co-location
• Enable Continuous • Self-organization and accountability
Improvement
• Becoming a team player
• Elimination of “waste” and “ceremony”
• Empirical demonstration of results

Agile is a • Customer is always present

journey, not a • Product managers and owners
destination.
• 5 planning events: product planning,
release/feature planning, iteration planning,
sprint review, and stand-ups

© Genesis Consulting, LLC 8 www.genesisconsulting.com

Application Development vs. SAP

• 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

© Genesis Consulting, LLC 9 www.genesisconsulting.com

 Agile Foundations

Team decides
which task will
be worked on
Release Planning
– Sprint Zero

Iteration Length 1 – 4
Weeks

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Kanban Board
5 4 3 4 2 2

Input Analysis Dev Development Build Test Release Stage Prod.

Queue In Prog Done Ready In Prog Done Ready Ready

Flow
Courtesy David J. Anderson & Associates, Olav Maassen QNH

© Genesis Consulting, LLC 11 www.genesisconsulting.com

 Delivering SAP Business Process Solutions

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 Common SAP Business Process
Requisition to Check Process

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

© Genesis Consulting, LLC 13 www.genesisconsulting.com

 Business Process / Requirements Decomposition

Process Level 1 / 2*
Release i.e. work stream and/or core functionality

Theme 1 Process Level 2

Theme i.e. Requisition to Check Process

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

© Genesis Consulting, LLC 14 www.genesisconsulting.com

 Decomposition of ERP Process

Requisition to Check Process Theme

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

© Genesis Consulting, LLC 15 www.genesisconsulting.com

 Story Mapping
• 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
Create Sales Create
Sales Order
activity Order Org Standard
Master Data
Data Order
time
Create Create Recieve Validate Create Sales Determine Conduct
task Product Sales Customer Master Order type Availability Credit
Master Org Order Data to Purchase Check
necessity

Create Create Calculate Validate Save Send Order

Customer Distribution Pricing Order Sales Confirmation
Master Channels Order to Customer

Create Create
Credit Division
sub-tasks or Master
task details
Create Create
Price Sales
Master Office

Create
Sales
Group

* From Jeff Patton at Agile Product Design

© Genesis Consulting, LLC 16 www.genesisconsulting.com
 Story Mapping
• 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
Create Sales Create
Sales Order
activity Order Org Standard
Master Data
Data Order
time
Create Create Recieve Validate Create Sales Determine Conduct
task Product Sales Customer Master Order type Availability Credit
Master Org Order Data to Purchase Check
necessity

Create Create Calculate Validate Save Send Order

Customer Distribution Pricing Order Sales Confirmation
Master Channels Order to Customer

Create Create
Credit Division
sub-tasks or Master
task details
Create Create
Price Sales
Master Office

Create
Sales
Group

* From Jeff Patton at Agile Product Design

© Genesis Consulting, LLC 16 www.genesisconsulting.com
Story Mapping * – Release Planning

time
necessary
first release
less
optional second release
optionality

more third release

optional
• 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
* From Jeff Patton at Agile Product Design
© Genesis Consulting, LLC 17 www.genesisconsulting.com
Story Mapping

User Story Mapping is an approach to

Organizing and Prioritizing user stories

* From Jeff Patton at Agile Product Design

18
© Genesis Consulting, LLC www.genesisconsulting.com
 Lean Agile SAP Customer Case Study

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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

© Genesis Consulting, LLC 20 www.genesisconsulting.com

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

© Genesis Consulting, LLC 21 www.genesisconsulting.com

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

© Genesis Consulting, LLC 22 www.genesisconsulting.com
Customer Testimonials
"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

SAP project teams are realizing up to 250% increase in productivity and efficiency.
© Genesis Consulting, LLC 23 www.genesisconsulting.com
Expanding Lean Agile to
Manage ERP Operations

© Genesis Consulting, LLC 24 www.genesisconsulting.com

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

© Genesis Consulting, LLC 25 www.genesisconsulting.com

Scope Decomposition – Story Mapping

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

© Genesis Consulting, LLC 27 www.genesisconsulting.com

Project - Teams
Core Teams:
• Comprised of IT and Business
Organizational team members.
Planning and Warehouse Transportation • Drive the key business
Change
Mfg. Management Management Management
process and solution
functionality for the project.
• Maintain product backlogs of
all items to be delivered as
Supply part of their scope.
Order to Cash Finance
Planning • Manage integration and
dependencies across other
core teams and to support
teams.

Support Teams:
• Comprised of IT and
Business team members.
Development WebMethods Master Data • Support Functional teams.
• Teams are integrated with
functional teams.
• Support functional teams
in daily scrums, sprint
planning, and sprint
Field IT Technical BI/Reporting Testing reviews.
• Participate in Scrum of
Scrums and Integration
meetings as needed.

© Genesis Consulting, LLC 28 www.genesisconsulting.com

 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
Key Benefits to Date

• 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

© Genesis Consulting, LLC 30 www.genesisconsulting.com

ASAP 8 for Agile Projects

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SAP Activate

• SAP Activate is on SAP Jam Site

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A Lean Approach to Implementing SAP

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 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

© Genesis Consulting, LLC 34 www.genesisconsulting.com

 Agile Readiness -
Is Your COTS/ERP Team Ready for Agile?

• Project Characteristics • Project Resources

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

© Genesis Consulting, LLC 35 www.genesisconsulting.com

Innovate, Ideate, Iterate…
Design Thinking + Agile Delivery

• Innovate – Motivate Understand

teams with diverse
backgrounds to Observe
collaborate and solve Define a
problems Point of View

• Ideate – Turn ideas into

action
Ideate

• Iterate – Prototype and Deliver Prototype

deliver the product Iterate

Test

There is no Innovation without Implementation!

© Genesis Consulting, LLC 36 www.genesisconsulting.com
Deliver Innovative Results
Iterate

Ideate
Agile

Innovate

© Genesis Consulting, LLC 37 www.genesisconsulting.com

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

© Genesis Consulting, LLC 38 www.genesisconsulting.com

 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

© Genesis Consulting, LLC 39 www.genesisconsulting.com

Approach to Lean and Agile ERP

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

© Genesis Consulting, LLC 40 www.genesisconsulting.com

“Life is a continuous journey
of transformation.”
Connect with Genesis Consulting

www.genesisconsulting.com

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 jason fair nick coticchia
CEO Chief Operating Officer

5207 Hickory Park Drive, Suite E 5207 Hickory Park Drive, Suite E
Glen Allen, VA 23059 Glen Allen, VA 23059

e | [email protected] e | [email protected]
t | 804.523.8007 t | 804.523.8007
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