SAP Those things - Theory Part -8- Digging and filling holes in SAP projects

SAP Those things - Theory Part -8- Digging and filling holes in SAP projects

In the implementation of SAP projects, people in the consulting industry are familiar with the words (should be called two words), "hole digging" and "hole filling." The so-called "pit" is whether intentional or unintentional there are some system problems, nvidia partner these problems do not affect business operation at present, but in the future business expansion or user discovery, it will become a "pit", that is, buried a "hidden danger"; The so-called "filling pit" means that the former consultant withdraws after completing the project, and the latter consultant needs to deal with some problems left by the former consultant; In other words, the previous stage of the project has ended, and the later stage of the project to promote or deepen the application, system optimization process needs to deal with the previous system design, business process design and the current program where there is a conflict, that is, the "pit" left in front of it is filled up. It is very image, so SAP implementation consultants often say "where to fill the hole" or "fall into the hole can not climb up", there will be "this hole dug a little big ah", "the hole is not easy to fill ah" such statements.

In fact, this is a kind of self-joking saying in the project, it is inevitable that there will be problems in the project, SAP Outsourcing some are limited by experience, some are not paid attention to, some are not thought of, and some are difficult to solve business problems at the system level. I believe that most consultants will not intentionally dig holes, which involves professional ethics. If everyone in the circle knows, it may be more difficult to continue working in this line. Let's talk about common pits in this article.

1. Process issues. This kind of problem may seem simple, but it is difficult to solve. Mainly, the process problem is closely related to the business itself, the department relationship, and even the personal interests (the department interests and personal interests must not be ignored in the process discussion, which have a significant impact on the process, and even need to compromise in the end). smart waste management Process changes may be caused by changes in the process after the launch, or by unclear discussion of a certain process in the early stage of the implementation process. Process problems can be large or small. For such problems, it is necessary to "fill the pit" or start with sorting out the process, that is, to determine the process first and consider the impact of the process on system operation and scheme at the same time. If the process changes will affect the responsibilities of certain personnel, it is necessary to remind the senior management of the enterprise in advance and prepare the plan in advance, and then consider the adjustment of the system plan after the process is determined. In general, the process problem is not only a problem at the system level, so as long as the actual business itself, leadership attitude, department relations, personal interests and other aspects of comprehensive consideration. Just a few thoughts on the process. The first is what is the process? The vision of the enterprise is what the enterprise wants to be, what the goal of the enterprise is (short, medium and long term), the mission of the enterprise is why the enterprise exists, what is the meaning of existence, and the value of the enterprise is the way and method to achieve the vision. In this way, the process should be said to belong to the values of the enterprise, that is, one process specifies how to do things, and the second is how to design the process. In my opinion, the most important characteristics of the process are two, one is the simplicity of the process, and the other is the closed loop of the process. The process with high feasibility must be concise. When discussing the process with enterprises, we can grasp these two points to talk about the process and design the process, which will appear that we are more professional:). The third is the particularity of the process, every enterprise has some particularity in a certain process, or there are some special businesses that cannot be included in the standard process. My opinion is that if this special business happens occasionally (for example, once or twice a year, you don't even know when it will happen, you just think it may happen), let it go, don't spend energy to discuss it. A process that covers 95% or so of the standard business is fine, and if you want to design a process that covers all possible scenarios, you're doing yourself a disservice.

2. The system configuration is incorrect. This kind of problem is relatively easy for experienced consultants to solve, but you need to pay attention to the impact of system configuration changes on up-front documentation, especially undocumented, rather than just the impact on future business. Of course, some core configurations are also difficult to change, such as the currency of financial accounting, the type of currency controlled by the scope. See, we have to consider a problem, but also from the perspective of time and space, time to include the past, present and future, space is to consider the interaction between modules, it is not easy to say, for our SAP consultant praise! Personal experience, for difficult to change or impossible to change the system configuration, directly say no, do not make it difficult for yourself, if you must change, be sure to make clear the impact on the business, do not back the pot.

3. System operations are abnormal. This level of problem is the easiest to solve by telling the user what to do and how to avoid mistakes in the future. When appropriate, there can be some reward and punishment mechanisms to improve the user's operation accuracy. For these problems, what our consultant can do is to explain the reasons for these operational problems, and indicate the impact of the problems on other departments, such as the impact of inaccurate production reporting data on production cost accounting. The most important thing is to explain how to avoid such problems and how to avoid them in the future, which reflects the professionalism of the consultant. That is, the cause of the problem, the impact of the problem, and how to improve the three points, which should be reflected in the consultant's treatment of the problem.

4. Development problems, whether functional development, enhancement development, forms or reports development, need to be negotiated with the development consultant. In my opinion, it is important to pay attention to organizational level limits and authority checks to avoid large-scale impact, especially in the environment where many companies use a unified production system. It is also very important to establish professional and strict development rules.

5. Bug problem of SAP. Up to now, bugs of mature versions of SAP should be said to be very few (ECC 6.0 is the most stable version at present), or they may be businesses that are not supported by SAP standard logic (for example, as far as I know,SAP has standard solutions for outsourced entrusting parties, but no standard solutions for entrusted parties. Therefore, for the processing export enterprises based on incoming material processing and incoming material processing, sometimes it is necessary to consider flexible solutions on the basis of existing standard functions. In this case, either we can solve the problem through development or flexible solutions, or accept the current logic of SAP. Sometimes SAP still needs to make a note to support the function of a certain point. In this case, we need to check the note and ask Basis consultant to make a note.

SAP consultant is pain and happiness (Bai Yansong wrote a book, called "pain and happiness", human pursuit of happiness is correct, but if there is only happiness, without any pain, it is also called life? The nature of life is pain and happiness), this line of work pressure and intensity is relatively large, need a better body and mentality to complete the work, with the longer time engaged in the industry, we will more from the business perspective to consider how to solve problems, rather than just from the system perspective to solve problems. In fact, you will find that a lot of things, if you simply use the system to solve, will be difficult, because the business is really changing, no matter how great the system can not catch up with the ever-changing business. Just like the most powerful painter is also difficult to completely paint the magnificent beauty of nature, I believe that many travelers have similar feelings, otherwise how can there be "beautiful" the word it. However, if we standardize the business process or we do not have to cover all business situations, but the system can cover 90-95% of the business of the enterprise, and the other business is special cases special processing (special processing we understand as manual processing), then it will be much simpler. At the end of the day, systems are just tools, and we can't expect them to solve every problem in the enterprise. Blacksmithing also needs its own hard, enterprise informatization to the next level, first of all, we must start from the basic management of enterprises. There is a saying called "iron hard disk water soldier", to paraphrase, SAP this industry is "iron project water consultant", consultants in the "digging" and "filling the pit" between the continuous growth!