SAP Activate Methodology for Transition to SAP S/4HANA – New Version

The SAP Activate methodology is SAP’s recommended implementation methodology when implementing SAP S/4HANA. Customers get detailed descriptions of all relevant project activities. The descriptions are bundled and structured in “road maps” – The Roadmap Viewer is a tool used by project team members to navigate the phases, deliverables, tasks and accelerators of a certain road map.

The “Transition to SAP S/4HANA” road map is updated quarterly to cover the newest information on SAP S/4HANA itself, the recommended implementation tools, services and project accelerators. A new version of this road map is now available, and I would like to make you familiar with the most important changes we made (however, for those of you, who are new to the road map concept, I strongly recommend to read the Road Map Summary first before continuing).

Here are the most important changes:

1. New functional design process

The functional design processes of SAP cloud and on-premise implementations are described in SAP Activate as you know. In the past, on-premise implementations preferred a “Fit-Gap” approach.

This has been changed to a “Fit-to-Standard Analysis / Design” approach to better align with the implementation methodology for cloud products, and to focus more on staying as close as possible to the SAP standard. The picture below lists the new sequence of steps.

New functional design process for on-premise

Accordingly, all activities and tasks related to “Fit-Gap” have been removed from the road map, and the new sequence of activities:

1. Fit-to-Standard Workshop Preparation
2. Fit-to-Standard System Preparation
3. Fit-to-Standard Workshop Execution & Documentation
4. Fit-to-Standard Workshop Validation
5. Design Workshops
6. Design Documentation
7. Review & Customer Sign-off

has been documented in detail. In addition, and to make it more easy for you to follow the “Fit-to-Standard” approach in your implementation project, a new accelerator “How to Approach Fit-to-Standard Analysis / Design – On Premise” has been created.

2. New road map overview picture

The new functional design process is displayed in the updated road map overview picture (box “Fit-to-Standard Analysis / Design”).

Transition to SAP S/4HANA – Version 20Q3

The overview picture is part of the updated project file template file you can download from the entry page of the road map, and use it for structuring your project.

3. Many new / updated accelerators

Many accelerators, tools and information sources linked from the road map have been updated, or newly added. Some important examples are:

In the Discover phase:

• Added the SAP S/4HANA community as a new starting point for you on convenient information access around SAP S/4HANA on premise
• Added the Road Map Explorer tool to conveniently browse current and planned innovations for SAP S/4HANA
• Added the Webinar Series of the SAP S/4HANA Movement which explain the road map concept to you
• Added the great webinar of the “Road Map Game”, for you to become familiar working with road maps
• Added a new entry-level SAP White Paper – The Journey to the Intelligent Enterprise to put your transition to SAP S/4HANA into a broader context
• For convenient access we updated the link to the “Fully-Activated appliance” for SAP S/4HANA in the SAP Cloud Appliance Library, which has been updated to Feature Pack Stack 01 of release 1909

In the Prepare phase:

• Added a new SAP White Paper – Custom Extensions in SAP S/4HANA Implementations
• Added a search help for conveniently getting knowledge assets from the Regional Implementation Group RIG on SAP S/4HANA; Many direct links to blog posts from the RIG team are of course include in the road map.
• Added a central landing page for SAP sizing information – This is a great compilation of best practices, product specific guidelines and the Quick Sizer tool of course.

4. New SAP S/4HANA Cookbook included in the road map

There is a new SAP S/4HANA Cookbook – Employee Business Partner Integration available for you. The cookbook deep-dives into the employee-to-business partner synchronization, and is linked from the road map in activity “Transition Preparation”.

5. New / updated offerings from SAP Value Assurance

All service information of SAP Value Assurance linked from the road map has been updated. Two service offerings are newly added:

• For the activity “Transition Planning”: For customers running for a selective data transition (shell conversion or mix & match), SAP now offers a “Selective Data Transition Planning Workshop” (SPW) which clarifies on functional and technical planning aspects of such a transition
• The activity “Integration Design” is now supported by an “Integration Planning Workshop” to detail the integration between SAP S/4HANA and the solution landscape.

So for all of you who are about to start an implementation project for SAP S/4HANA on premise, I recommend checking out the entire new  “Transition to SAP S/4HANA” road map. All of you who are already working with one of the older road map versions I recommend to check the new highlights I listed above.

I would love to hear your feedback on the new version and the new content, if it is helpful for your project work. Also I invite you to post your ideas here on what we should include in one of your next updates.