Learning SAP for Pleasure?
Good day to everyone.
Its been some time since I blogged on SDN, apologies for the delay. I have been busy and couldn’t conribute as much as would have liked.
A thought has recently crossed my mind. I am not sure if many people out there share my thoughts, so i thought of writing a blog to see for myself.
In my 3 years of SAP experiance, I have been exposed to a variety of modules and technologies within SAP. I have had a chance to work briefly with some and more in detail with others. I have found that I am not always able to work on what i would like to most of the time. 🙂 I guess that most people would have faced a similar situation in the past.
To elaborate on this point, maybe I can give you an example. Suppose I have been working on Webdynpro ABAP, and during this time, I get to modify an Adobe Form. I would gather as much knowledge required for me to accomplish my immediate task (modifying the Adobe form). Also, suppose that, I have had an interest to work on Adobe forms more in detail, but since my customer is not implementing it, I couldn’t, do it in the customer system and my present company has very little resources to afford a test system.
In case of the above scenario, I am just wondering how many of us would…..
A ) Learn, or Try to Learn just by reading.
B ) Try to use SAP Trial version etc. which wouldn’t cost too much money.
C ) Go for Some Professional training and spend some Big Money.
Remember, this is just for your personal curiosity. You won’t be learning Adobe forms for implementation in Client projects or any work internal to your company.
I would also be interested in knowing your thoughts of how often you would like to learn something new…… again for your own knowledge.
Cheers,
Mz
Thanks for your comments. Cheers.
My view is that learning MORE about a particular area than you need to know right now means you can improve on your original solution; not necessarily this time, but the next time there's any maintenance planned for that component. More importantly, you are more useful to your employer / customer (and, just quietly, other employers as well !!) because you are in a better position to implement / explain the features of this new (to you, at least) technology.
From a personal perspective, as someone who enjoys doing something productive with the technology at hand (whether its R2, R3 or Netweaver), showing a willingness to learn and explore means I'm a proven asset when it comes to choosing teams for projects like brand new implementation and / or Ramp Up projects.
By comparison, I don't see very many other people learning any thing more than they absolutely need to, to get the current job done. Reading the comments here seem to match this observation.
In the short term, you may think this is a good thing, because it reduces the competition. However, in the long term, it directly affects me two ways;
1) the employer / customer (and potential employers / customers) get a poor idea of what the technology is capable of, which reduces their desire to use it, and may even turn them off SAP altogether, reducing the opportunities for me, and
2) as less people know about particular SAP technologies, then the community around these, and SAP in general, gets smaller, meaning I lose the benefit of the 'wisdom of the crowds' to help me learn.
So, in summary, I have a partner and three children to feed, so get learning and get evangelistic, because I'm not clever enough to do it all myself !!
Thanks for taking time to write such a long comment. 🙂
Well put. It kind of reminds me about the story of the ant and the grasshopper 🙂
Marketing one's learning ability is not only beneficial for one's own self, but also better for the employer and hence, indirectly beneficial to one's own self again. So basically its something which we should not overlook.
Ultimately, we should decide what role we need to play in the SAP world - that of the ant or that of the grasshopper.
Cheers Mazin.