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Author's profile photo Jan Musil

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

SAP Activate Characteristics.jpg

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.

SAP Activate JAM.jpg

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.

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      Author's profile photo Former Member
      Former Member

      Thanks for sharing ......

      Author's profile photo Former Member
      Former Member

      Please send me invitation for Jamgroup

      Author's profile photo Jan Musil
      Jan Musil
      Blog Post Author

      Hello Joseph,

      the room will open in a few weeks. We will explain in the follow-up blog how to gain access. Please stay tuned.

      Best Regards, Jan

      Author's profile photo Former Member
      Former Member

      Dear Jan

      thanks for your quick return. I am lecturing in university and it would be great to access content as early as possibly

      best regards

      joseph

      Author's profile photo Gerald Pecover
      Gerald Pecover

      Hi Jan

      Can you clarify what you mean by "a new consumption experience"?

      Cheers

      Gerald

      Author's profile photo Jan Musil
      Jan Musil
      Blog Post Author

      Hi Gerald,

      'consumption experience' refers to the experience of adopting the SAP solutions like S/4HANA. It is broader than just methodology as the experience is a combination of the easy start with Best Practices, simple configuration with guided configuration and methodology.

      Actually this term will likely be replaced in near future as we have received feedback similar to yours - the term is not generally understood.

      I hope this makes it more clear.

      Jan

      Author's profile photo Jan Musil
      Jan Musil
      Blog Post Author

      Note that the SAP Activate methodology web space is now open. See this blog post for details - SAP Activate methodology JAM space - we are open, come in

      Author's profile photo Ibrahim Dorego
      Ibrahim Dorego

      Dear Jan,

      Thanks for the blog - really interesting.

      I would like to join the Jam Group, but I don't have a Twitter account. Is there an alternative way to join.

      PS: Our company does not allow to use twitter in our network.

      Author's profile photo Jan Musil
      Jan Musil
      Blog Post Author

      Hello Ibrahim,

      please watch this space for an update on the new sign-up process that no longer requires Twitter account. We will be announcing it in the next week or so.

      Best Regards, Jan

      Author's profile photo Former Member
      Former Member

      Please send me invitation for jamgroup

      Author's profile photo Jan Musil
      Jan Musil
      Blog Post Author

      Hi Luiz,

      please submit your e-mail address here - http://bit.ly/SAPActivate

      We will send you invite.

      Best Regards, Jan

      Author's profile photo Jorge Weiss
      Jorge Weiss

      Hello Jan,

      I typed my e-mail to the link mentioned above, and got the message:

      "Thank you. Your response has been added to my Smartsheet."

      But no feed-back after a week (even in my Spam inbox).

      Something else I can do??

      Regards,

      /Weiss

      Author's profile photo Jan Musil
      Jan Musil
      Blog Post Author

      Hello Jorge,

      I'm sorry to hear about your experience. Please direct message me on SCN with your e-mail address (to keep it hidden). I'll check if it has been already added to the list. We typically have people added in 24 business hours.

      Best Regards, Jan

      Author's profile photo Jorge Weiss
      Jorge Weiss

      Hi Jan,

      I must be connected with you to send you a DM.

      /Weiss

      Author's profile photo Former Member
      Former Member

      Hi Jorge,

      I just sent you the invitation again. Please let me know if you have received it.

      Best, kevin

      Author's profile photo Jorge Weiss
      Jorge Weiss

      Hello Kevin,

      worked perfect!

      Thanks a lot.

      /Weiss

      Author's profile photo Former Member
      Former Member

      Hi Jorge,

      Glad to hear that!

      Best,

      Author's profile photo Former Member
      Former Member

      Hi Jan,

      I would like to know more about SAP Activate and with access to study material. Is there a plan to come up with Open SAP course on this topic? 

      Author's profile photo Jan Musil
      Jan Musil
      Blog Post Author

      Hello Jain,

      we plan to run OpenSAP course with SAP Activate content in 2016, but there will be other offerings sooner. Like the courses we are building for release before end of this year and Learning Room in the Learning Hub that will open soon.

      There is also number of assets in the Jam that you can access right now and we keep them all up to date - thanks to using the flexibility of cloud content delivery.

      Jan

      Author's profile photo Former Member
      Former Member

      Hi Jan

      I have provided my email address in the link SAP Activate Methodology - Get Early Access! - Smartsheet.com.

      Appreciate if you can provide me with the access.  Would like to know more about this methodology and understand the Discovery process.

      Regards

      Sridhar

      Author's profile photo Former Member
      Former Member

      Hi Sridhar,

      The invite should be in your mailbox, please message me if you have not received it!

      Enjoy,

      Kevin

      Author's profile photo Former Member
      Former Member

      Hello Jan, I am writing to you as an enabler and would like to build in this metholoogy to my enablement plan  in order to share it with partners. Please tell me who could be the right person to get in touch with regards of SAP Activate. Thanks in advance. Zsolt

      Author's profile photo Jan Musil
      Jan Musil
      Blog Post Author

      Zsolt,

      send me e-mail internally. We can talk.

      Best Regards, Jan

      Author's profile photo Sudhakar Chari
      Sudhakar Chari

      Hi Jan

      I have provided my email address in the link SAP Activate Methodology - Get Early Access! - Smartsheet.com.

      Appreciate if you can provide me with the access.  Would like to know more about this methodology and understand the Discovery process.

      Kind regards

      Sudhakar

      Author's profile photo Wajdi Saif
      Wajdi Saif

      Hi Jan,

      I've same issue of Sudhakar, as i've provided my mail account almost one month back and yet no access was granted...apprciate your support...thanks...

      Author's profile photo Jan Musil
      Jan Musil
      Blog Post Author

      Hi,

      my team checked that invite has been sent to you. It is entirely possible that it ended up in Spam folder. Kevin from my team will reach out to you tomorrow to help you with this.

      Jan

      Author's profile photo Former Member
      Former Member

      Hi Wajdi,

      The original invitation was sent on 11/23/2015.

      I have also sent the invite to your Gmail and professional email again. Please notify me if you have not received it!

      Best,

      Kevin

      Author's profile photo Former Member
      Former Member

      Hi Jan, is the SAP Activate content available for Soltuion Manager already?

      Thanks,

      Marcus

      Author's profile photo Jan Musil
      Jan Musil
      Blog Post Author

      Solution Manager 7.2

      Everyone else can access it in SAP Jam or in Roadmap Viewer - http://bit.ly/SAPRoadmapViewer

      Author's profile photo Former Member
      Former Member

      Hi Jan,

      I have added my email to the Jam Group request but have not received any confirmation yet.

      Am I being to eager?

      Is this the best place to look at the methodology or should I now being using Solution Manager?

      Regards

      Andrew

      Author's profile photo Former Member
      Former Member

      Hi Andrew,

      I just re-sent the invite. Please notify me if you still have not received it!

      Best,

      Kevin

      Author's profile photo Former Member
      Former Member

      Hi Kevin,

      Thanks, I'm in

      Regards

      Andrew

      Author's profile photo aditi rastogi
      aditi rastogi

      Hello Jan,

      Really nice blog. I have submitted my email and got the message "Thank you. Your response has been added to my Smartsheet" and have not received the confirmation. I am really keen on learning more about SAP Activate, can you please help me to get the access to SAP Activate.

      Regards,

      Aditi

      Author's profile photo Former Member
      Former Member

      Hi Aditi,

      According to our Jam page, you have been invited and are already a member. Please try to access the pages, and email me at Kevin.Si@sap.com if you have any issues.

      The access is linked to your Yahoo account.

      Author's profile photo Srinivas Rao
      Srinivas Rao

      Hi Jan

      Thanks for the post !! Stumbled upon the post when I was searching to find out how many of the project execution team members really faced the issue of "effort estimation" when the effort estimation model has to be at the RICEF level...Kindly share any experience on it and also if you could add the different activities that get additionally added due to this methodology, it would be gr8....Thanks once again !!

      Author's profile photo Jan Musil
      Jan Musil
      Blog Post Author

      The teams estimate the RICEFW effort several times - once during the proposal stage when you need to make a lot more assumptions about the development objects and often estimate the effort in T-shirt sizes by complexity. Later during the project, when the team has better understanding of the effort the estimates will be more granular and instead of T-shirt sizes the team will estimate the effort per user story (this includes all the work to get to done - e.g. Technical design, Coding, Testing, Data Cleansing/Preparation, Any needed config activities, Transports, and Documentation).

      Author's profile photo Former Member
      Former Member

      Hello Jan,

      I'm very keen on to start use the new "SAP Activate Methodology" for my customers. Now I'm a new member of the respective Jam and will participate in the newly announced "SAP Activate e-learning ACT10E training". In parallel I tried to upload from Access Roadmap Viewer https://go.support.sap.com/roadmapviewer/ a project template for SAP Activate methodology for Business Suite and On-Premise- Waterfall and Agile.

      Unfortunately I cannot upload them to my SolMan. Sory for bothering you with potentially simple question by neither SAP Search nor Google could help me.

      Problem:

      The project xml template file check in PPM / SolMan 7.1 is successful, the import however  ends always with en error "You must enter a value for the role type"/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/tmp_error_1040388.png

      What I have checked so far:

      1) SPRO-->SAP IMG-->SAP Portfolio & Project Mgmt.-->Project Management-->Structure-->Define Project Type.

      2) SPRO-->SAP IMG-->SAP Portfolio & Project Mgmt.-->Project Management-->Resource Management-->Basic Settings for roles-->Define role types

      Both entries look fine to me.

      Both of them looks fine to me.

      Would you please be so kind and advise me what I have to check, correct, do in order to get the project template loaded?

      I look forward to hearing from you soon.

      Best regards and thank you for your all support and interesting contribution to SAP Activate approach.

      Piotr

      Author's profile photo Lisa Kouch
      Lisa Kouch

      Hi Piotrk, I will review the upload files and let you know if I find anything that needs to be adjusted.Thanks, Lisa

      Author's profile photo Former Member
      Former Member

      Hi Lisa,

      Thanks for your quick response and willingness to help.

      Additional information: during the check run I had to add two time units "Day" and "D", for days at IMG => SAP Portfolio and Project Management->Project Management->Basic Settings->Define Time Units.

      Initially I had got only "H" for Hours. This helped me to get rid of "Select a valid unit" error. But for the above mentioned error "You must enter a value for the role type" at the import phase I haven't found any solution. So I’m wait now for your feedback

      best regards

      Piotr

      Author's profile photo Former Member
      Former Member

      Hello Lisa,

      Hello Jan,

      Lisa Kouch wrote:

      Hi Piotrk, I will review the upload files and let you know if I find anything that needs to be adjusted.Thanks, Lisa

      Could you please update me on this topic? I'm not able to use the Road Map and the SAP Activate project templates for Business Suite on premise and cloud!

      Your support would be very much appreciated

      Regards

      Piotr

      Author's profile photo Sudhakar Chari
      Sudhakar Chari
      Author's profile photo Jacky Zhang
      Jacky Zhang

      Hello Sudhakar,

      First I have to say the download function is not nice, but it is working as design, accelerators can be different type of objects (document, web page) and are spread over different platforms, downloading them also relates with authorization on different platform, we haven't got good solution to make it, we simply put accelerator's URL to a txt file if it is not recognized as a downloadable file from RM Viewer platform, but thanks for your feedback, we will keep our eyes on this issue.

      Best Regards,

      Jacky

      Author's profile photo Former Member
      Former Member

      Jan,

      I am trying to locate a PPT deck regarding SAP ACTIVATE only. I cannot seem to locate it in PARTNER EDGE or elsewhere. Can you point me in the right direction.

      Also do I need to install Activate to see the Best Practices or is there someplace else I might be able to see these best practices for a specific industry.

       

      Todd Z.

       

      Author's profile photo Former Member
      Former Member

      Good 15 minute video outlining SAP Activate on high level, including extra attention on the Agile aspect: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CGYnO3M6I2w&t=99s

      Author's profile photo Fernando Valiente
      Fernando Valiente

      Hi Jan
      I have reviewed and there is not a best practice for Peru in S4 / Hana.
      In this case, as you suggest that we handle an implementation project for FI, CO, SD, MM, PM, PS, since SAP Activate is Best Practice (Not available for Peru), Configuration Guide (Not available for Peru) and Metodology (Available).

      Thanks

      Gustavo