SAP Activate – what is the methodology story?

Some of you may have seen that at SAPPHIRE annual conference SAP announced new consumption experience for SAP S/4HANA. It builds on three components — SAP Best Practices, Guided Configuration and Methodology. You can find more details about SAP Activate in this blog post and also in this blog post.

Today, I want to share with you a few exciting updates about the implementation methodology component that is designed to enable adoption of SAP S/4HANA and to accelerate implementation projects across wide range of SAP products and solutions.

At SAP we continuously explore new approaches to accelerate software deployment projects with innovative approaches and bring these improvements into the implementation methodology. The most recent innovation we are introducing is the SAP Activate methodology that builds on proven approaches and principles outlined below.

• Start with Best Practices – leverage Rapid Deployment Solutions (RDS), SAP Best Practices, Model Company or other pre-built assets
• Pre-assembly and cloud ready – rapidly build solution environment in the cloud based on the Best Practices to accelerate validation activites
• Validate Solution – guide customer through the standard functionality in show-and-tell sessions; identify and validate delta requirements and gaps; design solution that minimizes modifications to standard and enables faster innovation
• Agile build – use iterative build of capabilities, prototyping and frequent validation of the results with business users to ease adoption and release solutions to business faster
• Premium Engagement Ready – customers under SAP MaxAttention and SAP Active Embedded agreements will find guidance for use of control centers and related services in the methodology (e.g. Innovation Control Center, Operations Control Center and Mission Control Center)
• Quality Built-In – formal risk and quality management with structured quality management plan and pre-defined Q-Gates are built into the project from the start

What will happen to ASAP methodology?

Ever since we introduced SAP Activate at SAPPHIRE, I have been hearing one question in almost every conversation with ASAP users – ‘What will happen to ASAP?’. Let me explain our plans with ASAP methodology content now that SAP Activate methodology is here.

The SAP Activate methodology supersedes ASAP methodology for implementation. SAP will continue to provide access to the last version of ASAP 8 methodology in SAP Service Marketplace for project teams that are using it today. There will be no further content enhancements made to ASAP 8 going forward as all the new implementation methodology assets will be made available through SAP Activate framework.

We will make further announcements in early 2016 about when the ASAP content will be removed from SAP Service Marketplace as it is now fully superseded by SAP Activate methodology.

Where can I access the SAP Activate methodology content?

Over the next weeks we will be making further announcements about how SAP customers and SAP partners gain access to the SAP Activate methodology content. The materials will be initially available in the SAP JAM collaboration space that will allow for better information exchange between methodology users and the SAP subject matter experts. In the second half of this year we will be providing the SAP Activate content also in the SAP Solution Manager platform.

Please stay tuned for more news and updates over the next few weeks. There is a lot of exciting content coming your way, that we can’t wait to share with our methodology users. Please remember to share your thoughts with us in the comments to this post.