It must have been May this year when our team was approached by SAP colleagues from the SAP research group SET (Software Engineering Tools). The background of that request was their annual research summit that they've started planning. With teams spread at three different locations in Darmstadt, Dresden and Karlsruhe they wanted to host that event completely different than in past years.
They heard about the SAP InnoJam series and wanted to understand if and how they could leverage that event for their team. We sat together a couple of times and adapted the event format slightly to the requirements of the team. It was an SAP internal event for the SAP research team SET, so only SAP employess were allowed to participate. Nevertheless an SAP Mentor, Richard Hirsch, was invited to be one of the three jury members and Richard accepted the invitation and provided very good feedback during the event and was an awesome jury member. Thanks Richard!!
The event was focused on allowing the SET group to do some networking, innovate around the "themes" and most importantly have fun!
There was no TechFire as at regular SAP InnoJams, but we also had the BizFire where the teams presented business scenarios related to specific "themes". These themes were mainly the sub-teams in the SET group. So after giving a 6 minute pitch on a theme the related business scenarios were presented.
The 50 participants created teams around these business scenarios and at the end they had 7 teams to work on prototypes to cover these scenarios. Interestingly the teams were very diverse in terms that nearly each team had members from all 3 locations. That was exactly what the SET management team wanted to happen. Teams were very motivated and liked the atmosphere during the event and at the end all 7 teams were able to present a prototype for their business scenario.
Roger Kilian-Kehr, the head of the SAP Research Practice SET, was excited to see the outcome of the event and is looking forward to follow-up on the prototypes that were presented.
As a moderator of the event I was impressed about the innovative power demonstrated by the SET team during the event. I think I'll try to capture some more ideas and thoughts from the SAP Research teams in a couple of blogs and interviews here on SCN so that the SET research team can share with you some interesting things they are working on.
I've put together a small video summarizing the event with some feedback from the participants and the SAP Mentor Richard Hirsch.
Best,
Rui
