Accountability and activities of the client in an SF implementation
I received multiple requests after my previous blog
https://blogs.sap.com/2018/07/02/how-important-is-accountability-in-a-successfactors-implementation/ to make it exhaustive
. Inquiries were around ‘I am in the client team what are my tasks’ ‘what falls under client accountability’ ‘what activities do a client own’ ‘Partner did not explain my role’ ' what to do and when' etc
I am hoping to help answer these questions and my idea is to keep this blog simple for easy understanding and suggest a basic template that can be used by anyone. Based on the scale of implementation and commercial agreements additional items may be added.
Prerequisites:
- SF Implementation phases never include DISCOVER (sales and scoping) & RUN (production support) phases they are pre and post implementation phases respectively.
- Partner should never be asked to assist in making process and business decisions.
- Conducting regular business cannot take full seniority while implementing and migrating to SF.
- Its ok to miss requirements, but not ok to add requirement gaps during flight within the original scope and timelines.
"I don't think implementation methodology matters" is a mistaken conjecture, SuccessFactors is a very different animal and needs a unique specialized time-tested procedure.
“What do other customers do” is not a good question to ask a Partner. Client team must know in and out of their requirements and what is best for their users.
“I have a day job, I cannot do this now” occurs when client planning and accountability is missing. Client team must be fully staffed and with dedicated hours for the implementation team.
“I need to go-live, yesterday” never rush complex deployments, no point saving a penny today to spend several dollars tomorrow. Fast-tracking an already rapid type of deployment may lead to complications.
Customer team accountability in a SuccessFactors implementation:
[Tried to put it in a chronological order per Implementation Phases. None of the below are Partners/Software Vendor responsibility they can only lend a helping hand upon request]
PREPARE
- Review and absorb SOW. Understand Scope and Objectives.
- Provide access to all SuccessFactors instances
- Team setup, agree to roles and accountability
- Set up the team on SAP ONE Support Launchpad
- Describe the current state, objectives, pain points, desired future state via HR landscapes, questionnaires, readiness checklists, process documents etc
- Participate in Kickoff and ask well-thought-out questions
- Attend Orientations for all the modules being implemented and document process variances
- Provide inputs for timeline and planning. Project Plan is Partner responsibility.
- Agree and align on project tools to be used for collaboration and governance
- Participate in System Demo sessions and discuss process variances
Signoff readiness to start
EXPLORE
- Take part in all Requirement Gathering Workshops
- Complete configuration Workbooks
- Identify gaps and initiate change requests
- Engage SAP for areas of enhancements and product limitations
- Validate all requirements are captured and make business process decisions
- Provide particulars for Data migration and Integrations
- Develop test scenarios and test scripts
- Develop communication and change management plan
- Develop admin & end user training strategy
- Develop support strategy
Signoff requirements
REALIZE
- Participate in all Iterative solution review
- Request instance refresh and clones as required
- Testing data preparation and loads
- Execute iterative testing and user acceptance testing
- Document defects and retest fixed defects
- Create tickets for product issues
- Identify trainers and system administrators
- Participate and develop cut over strategy & apprise stakeholder
- Prepare documentation; user guides and process guides
- Attend system administrators and other relevant training
Signoff UAT
DEPLOY
- Provide production data
- Participate in training and knowledge transfer sessions
- Execute End-user training or deliver user guides
- Participate and execute production cutover
- Validated Integrations
- Complete all technical setup for production
- Smoke testing of the production instance
- Go/No-Go decision
- Execute Go-Live communication and launch
- Kickoff Hyper-care and post-go-live support
Celebrate!