ITIL, PRINCE2/PMBoK, SAP Activate and all these fancy tools for big SAP projects (transitions and transformations)

Some time after: https://blogs.sap.com/2016/10/31/itil-sap-rollouts-lack-project-management/

I would like to come back with update of my study on change management in big SAP Projects. Talking with many colleagues we realized that with so many fancy methods and tools now we observe still troubles on many projects. In my opinion a cause of it is at least a lack of understanding of some methods and tools and consequently they are mixed up and misused.

I put focus now on ITIL and observe that because ITIL became a worldwide standard for IT departments, so IT departments tend to use ITIL as a sole tool for everything. Very often IT departments are the “owners” of big business transformation thus trying to perform it ITIL-wise. That is not bad for sure, but since ITIL is not a project and organizational change management tool it must be used wise.

Note that OGC (agency of UK government), so the house which owns ITIL – promotes PRINCE2 for project management and another method for programme and some any another sort of change. That is on purpose as ITIL is “only” for IT services management. By the way please try to find a word “project” within fat books of ITIL…

Good point on this may be found here: https://www.axelos.com/news/blogs/august-2016/combining-itil-and-prince2-to-achieve-value as then making it together ITIL and PRINCE2 we can get right set for IT projects.

A Key word is here: “Continual” – as ITIL is a set of tools to keep the maintenance and CONTINUAL development of services whereas projects are connected with disruptive change. Using another wording anything what brings disruption exceeds the scope of ITIL.

Big transformation concerns many areas and groups of people and requires right activity on various layers so it would be good to have a kind of classification what method/tool is right for particular layers.

I have found a very interesting blog entry by Saeed Elnaj from Global ICT published on: https://www.insidengo.org/blog/managing-change-it-department. I take it from here and add additional columns and content to get SAP projects context:

I will still work on it but share this “draft” shape because I am curious about your opinion, advice, criticism and whatever.

By the way: it is not true that people hate changes – they hate to be treated in bad way. Just look on this how many people are eager to get new smartphones and apps for them. So, the conclusion is obvious if the way of introduction of even big transformation brings right motivation creating a kind of critical mass, people will love every SAP based big transformation!