Blog it forward… Bob Byrne, SAP Activate

Hello again. I hope all is well with everyone. Happiness and health coming at you in 2021.

The past several weeks I have spent a good amount of time writing and reading blog posts on our SAP Community platform. I found a great post titled: Blog it forward… and the name of the person writing the blog. This seemed like such a simple format to follow. Let’s do this.

Brief introduction of yourself. Mention who you were blogged forward by. Share a fun fact about yourself. And maybe, if inclined, a picture of yourself from the past or present, or the future would be really cool. That would give the blogs lots of views. Answer a few questions and you’re done. Blog it forward to the next person. I’m sold. I loved it. With the SAP Activate team moving to the SAP Community in the near future and with our team writing a lot of blogs this year, I thought this would be a nice way to get to know us is by implementing the blog it forward series #BIF for the SAP Activate team. Here it goes,,, #blogitforward

My name is Bob Byrne . I am a senior product manager here at SAP. I have worked at this great company for 15 years. Global business and technology are ‘my thing’. SAP is the largest global think tank and software development company for global business. I needed to work here. So I walked  through the glass doors to the “Fish Tank” aka NSQ1, our Americas Headquarters, in 2005 and I have been here ever since. Never a dull day. Opportunities everywhere. Some of the worlds smartest people right here, sitting next to me. And they pay me. It was truly a win win!

What do I do now at SAP? I am a Senior Product Manager with the SAP Product Engineering organization working in the SAP S/4HANA Cloud line of business. My team is the SAP Activate team. We are the guidance behind the SAP Activate methodology used to implement and deploy our SAP solutions. When I explain what it is that I do to my parents, I tell them that I am a part of the team that writes the instruction manuals on how to actually deploy and run the SAP solution after purchasing the software license. In essence, we provide the specific step-by-step project deployment guidance based on your SAP solution. I am the workstream owner of two SAP Activate workstreams, Solution Adoption, and Customer Team Enablement, where we have some great new content coming out this year for both of these workstreams.

These are my two boys, Bobby and Sean. We take our snow days serious here…

The blog it forward Q and A:

If you were 20 again, what would you study? If I was 20 again, I probably would have definitely not come home from Colorado after my 1996 ski bum season, and I would most likely have enrolled in a local college and studied Geology and Weather. 

Name the person who affected you most in your career/ way of thinking and why? I would say the person who affected me most in my career would be our former CEO, Bill McDermott. If you know Bill, then you know. 

Share a fun fact/story about yourself that people don’t know. Fun fact and story about me? 25 Years ago this October, I packed up my Ford F-150 pick-up truck, and drove up to Rt 80, made a left, and headed west to Aspen, Colorado. Why? To ski the Rocky Mountains and be a ski bum for a season. It was truly a life changing experience for me. Spending time that high up in the mountains alone with your thoughts was what I dreamed about for many years. Checking off the box to be a ski bum in Colorado, was the best decision of my young life. I recommend it to everyone.

If you were not in your current position, what/where would you be and why? If I was not in my current position and could do it all over, I would be a ski bum out West somewhere skiing. I could see myself just working in the summer time and skiing in the winters. That is exactly where I would be. 

I blog it forward to my boss, Jan Musil

Here are some questions you might want to use – but feel free to come up with your own!

• If you were 20 again, what would you study?
• Share a fun fact/story about yourself that people don’t know
• Which 5 things do you absolutely want to achieve in life?
• What is the best lesson your parents taught you?
• If you could be a super hero (or are in your spare time) who would you be?
• What do you enjoy most in your work and why?
• What is your personal life dream?
• What is your professional life dream?
• If you were given by your work a full day every week to do whatever you feel like, what would it be?
• Name the person who affected you most in your career/ way of thinking and why?
• What was the most fun project you ever participated in and why?
• If you were not in your current position, what/where would you be and why?
• Summer or Winter?
• What do you most enjoy about the SAP Community?

I hope you enjoy getting to know us a bit better. We are very much looking forward to serving you here on the SAP Community platform with everything SAP Activate methodology and SAP S/4HANA Cloud.

As always, I would like to encourage you to subscribe to our new podcast “Inside SAP S/4HANA”. This podcast leverages the unique knowledge and expertise of SAP S/4HANA product experts, partners and customers to address your needs by sharing product insights and project best practice. There is no customer success without product success and project success; we help you get to the next level and make your SAP S/4HANA projects a success. Subscribe now and benefit from the shared knowledge.

openSAP microlearnings for SAP S/4HANA 

Just a couple of months ago, we launched openSAP microlearnings for SAP S/4HANA as an exciting new learning opportunity. What began with a small batch of 20 videos, has now become a channel with more than 50 microlearnings that have generated over 20,000 views since then. Today we cover multiple lines of business, like Finance and Manufacturing & Supply Chain, and key technology topics like Master Data Management, Extensibility, User Experience, and Upgrade Management. We are continuously adding new microlearnings to the SAP S/4HANA channel, so make sure you check them out.

Your voice matters! 

If you want to learn more and actively engage with SAP subject matter experts on SAP S/4HANA Cloud, join our SAP S/4HANA Cloud Customer Community. This platform which is available to SAP S/4HANA Cloud customers and partners has a clear mission: deliver an interactive community to engage with one another about best practices and product solutions.

For more information on SAP S/4HANA Cloud, check out the following links:

• SAP S/4HANA Cloud release info: http://www.sap.com/s4-cloudrelease
• SAP S/4HANA Cloud Release Blogs here
• SAP S/4HANA PSCC Digital Enablement Wheel here

• Inside SAP S/4HANA Podcast here
• Product videos on our SAP S/4HANA Cloud and SAP S/4HANA YouTube playlist
• Best practices for SAP S/4HANA Cloud here
• SAP S/4HANA Cloud Customer Community: register here
• SAP Activate Community here 

• Feature Scope Description here
• What’s New here
• Help Portal Product Page here
• Implementation Portal here

Follow us via our SAP Community tag SAP Activate and also the #SAPS4HANAValueSeries , or myself via Bob Byrne