A vision for the potential future of the SAP d.code
Last week we had the pleasure to welcome several SAP community members e.g. Julia Dorbic, Fred Verheul, Twan van den Broek and Robin van het Hof from the Netherlands and also from Germany at the SAP AppHaus in Heidelberg. Goal was to discuss and experience together as one team the AppHaus concept and explore potential strategies to scale the concept in other locations.
As part of a Remember the Future exercise, moderated by Heike van Geel an interesting vision for the potential future of the SAP d.code emerged, which I would like to share with you.
The goal of the exercise was to move our minds and thoughts into the year 2018 – and look back from there to see which steps we have taken to achieve the future, hence the name “Remember the Future” (more details on this exercise: http://www.innovationgames.com/remember-the-future/).
Our vision for the SAP d.code is clear – there will be no longer a SAP d.code in 2018 but instead there is the world largest design conference called SAPDesignEd bringing the people and topics around design and development together. This 5 days event is a very inspiring mixture of inputs and exercises in any suitable formats like classical presentations, pecha kucha sessions, fish bowls, open spaces, world cafes or workshops with various formats and topics.
A very special part of the SAPDesignEd are the so-called “design & deliver-jams” during which participants work 3 intensive days on real-life design challenges given to them by real customers. But instead of building only some prototypes or demos the teams will deliver at the end of the 3 days some runnable and productively used software. Since in 2018 most of the SAP customers will run their latest stuff in the HANA Cloud this will work.
The “design&deliver-jams” are also a perfect platform to learn from other developers and designers and (for the customer) also an opportunity for customer to look for new talent and potential new employees. The customer giving the challenge has to pay for this and the participants working in this challenge get the SAPDesignEd entrance for free.
SAPDesignED proofs that design and development belong together and show cases how those 2 disciplines build software in a best possible way. SAPDesignEd brings the people for all relevant areas together and SAPDesignEd opens the mind not only talking and thinking about “software” but practicing and doing. Therefore also a lot of related design topics are part of the program and the SAPDesignEd is the melting point of all kinds of design.
SAPDesignEd brings last but not least also the “makers community” into the game. “Making things with your hands” is one overarching principle of the whole conference and therefore it feels more like a 5 day workshop rather than a conference. All kinds of stuff to play around with and to build stuff is available and inspires the participants to use their hands – and not only their brains.
The following visual, which was created in a 30 minute team exercise, shows the overall story: 
So, what do you think? What are your thoughts about our future vision? And which steps are needed to make it a reality?
I like it but since it is for real customers, I am expecting to get paid! Well at minimum not having to pay to get there 😉 Will there at least be some free food??
As I wrote - this is a vision and not a final plan 🙂 But the idea for the "design&deliver-jams" would definitely be some kind of "payment" for the designers and developers and the most obvious idea would be to get a free entrance for example.
What would YOU need to take part in such an format during a conference?
I think for me the greatest value would be in the learning experience. How about choosing a charity which the benefactor of the development would send a contribution to, plus a free T-Shirt 🙂 It would also help if the real customer would be someone I would care about, UN, Red Cross, whatever that would motivate me personally more than creating a great app for a hedge fund or a gun manufacturer.
Very good points thanks for this.
We will still need to figure out the details- thanks for the comment Bjorn 😉 !
What if....
... a SAP customer is willing to pay for a design&deliver jam? Not necessarily in a conference format where multiple customers are attending but more like in a customer specific jam. Freelancers, partner, SAP etc can join in the 2-3 day event and get paid for it (might be symbolic amount) as they are spending valuable/billable time on this customer. In that case you can run it multiple times a year and also on local level.
Hi Jan,
thanks for your feedback - this is exactly one part of our envisioned stoy 😉
Best regards
Jochen