Since long, the MDM Forum has been flooded with threads with subjects as "Basics of MDM", "Learning MDM", "New to MDM" etc etc. As more and more people are joining the Team MDM, they are not able to find a systematic way of going about Learning MDM, and to be honest I faced the same problem an year back.So how do you go about get yourself well acquainted with SAP MDM assuming you have no previous experience/knowledge whatsoever about "Master Data Management" and have jumped in as its the new "in thing!". Here's how I think you should do it:
1. Understand MDM before SAP MDM
Don’t jump directly into the technology or the product without understanding what you are doing and why you are doing. One must first appreciate the need for managing master data, why is it that suddenly everyone is talking about it. Devote one week's time only in reading articles, whitepapers, case studies on MDM... let it be SAP or any other product for that matter. Some of the useful links/websites are:
http://searchdatamanagement.techtarget.com/generic/0,295582,sid91_gci1156675,00.html?bucket=REF&topi...
http://www.b-eye-network.com/news/index.php?filter_topic=1160,1106,1041,1180
http://www.dmreview.com/channels/master_data_management.html
You can find many more on the net. Would suggest control your temptation to go to sdn as of now. ( But anyways you would have landed on this blog mostly via sdn! )
2. Its SAP MDM time !
Now that you have understood the concept of MDM, you can start of with knowing more about SAP MDM specifically. Again don’t jump into the product as yet. This time your focus should be on knowing the business offerings, scenarios, technology fit of SAP MDM with respect to its overall landscape. Things you should focus on this time would be:
a. What is SAP MDM?
b. How does SAP MDM fit into SAP NetWeaver landscape?
c. What are the IT scenarios of SAP MDM?
d. What are the business scenarios of SAP MDM?
e. What are the key components, GUI of SAP MDM?
f. Some case studies on success stories of SAP MDM
This time the best source would be sdn!
Enterprise Master Data Management
Getting Started with SAP NetWeaver Master Data Management
3. Getting hands-on SAP MDM
By now you would have well conceptualized SAP MDM and eager to open various MDM components. Here are few suggested readings:
a. SAP has provided detailed Reference Guides for each MDM component. These would be your bibles for time to come. They are available on service market place.
b. Reference guides are also available on help.sap.com at following link
http://help.sap.com/saphelp_mdm300/helpdata/EN/2d/ca9b835855804d9446044fd06f4484/frameset.htm
c. How-to Guides on sdn provide detailed step-by-step description on some important scenarios.
http://www.sdn.sap.com/irj/sdn/nw-mdm?rid=/webcontent/uuid/5024a59a-4276-2910-7580-f52eb789194b
d. We on sdn! You can always ask questions on sdn, but again requesting you to make sure that they do not already exist on the Forums and the SDN-MDM family will be more than happy to help you.
4. Execute your learning’s
Remember, SAP MDM is not a small product. It has 4 Reference guides, and they too don’t cover all the components. So if you think you can learn MDM by reading the Reference Guides as Agatha Christie & Sidney Sheldon then SAP MDM would surely look like all fiction to you! So take a step back, be patient and try to execute whatever you are learning. Find yourself a live MDM environment, better if its on the latest version, and try your hands on it. Develop simple scenarios to execute your learning’s like creating a small repository with fields and tables, importing data from excel, writing validation and assignments, developing simple workflows etc.
Hope this blog helps you in your way to becoming an MDM Guru!
