Looking for tools to become better consultant

[Former Member]

Hi All,

Does the SAP ecosystem or community uses some tools to allow them to be a better consultant? Like time management tools, resource finding tools, documentation tools, etc?

We all know that some other ecosystem, eg. Apple Developer contains tons and tons of tools to help developer do their everyday jobs better.

Would like to hear some and share if found any.

[Former Member]

Question answered, thanks.

[Jelena_Perfiljeva]

All the good points above. Just want to chime in and remind that importance of "soft skills" shouldn't be underestmated. By that I don't mean kissing of the managerial behinds (although, sadly, such consultants are sometimes enormously successfull for no other reason). If a consultant does not know how to listen and how to get his/her point across then no tool will help. Also just be honest, professional and kind. That's what separates great consultant from a good one, I believe. At the end we're all human. You can't find that on Google.

Goo luck!

[former_member42743]

The problem to becoming a better consultant via tools is that as you go from project to project you may or may not have access to said tools. Many of those tools require some network access, many require software to be installed on your desktop or laptop. Consultants are often given client issued laptops now where by those mean network and basis types of folks tightly control the ability to add programs. I can't even get a good game of solataire on them any more!

So to say you should use drop box or visio, or MS project, or Communicator or Messenger or Lync or whatever the hot new thing is would be a waste of time. Give it six months and a new technology will be there.

I find the most valuable thing is to collect things that you get overtime and organize them into a flat file system. Collect every OSS note you download into a PDF. Save examples of any code or programs you write or have written. Save all the program specs you have ever written. Any blueprints, as-is, to-be's etc... Excel templates. Worksheets used for data collection.. basically I try to get anything that I can get my grubby little hands on...

Create a cheat sheet of all the transactions people have shown you and make notes on them. Espeically ones in modules you don't typcially use but you know that someday..... you'll probably want to do 'that' again.

When you find an interesting posting at SDN, put the question into your own words and provide the answer and save these in a word document. If it interested you once, it will interest you again.

Keep this all availble on your personal desktop/laptop and get a 10 or 20GB thumb drive to duplicate it on. You can stil usually use USB thumbdrive at most places. They might frown on it and technology changes every day so you might lose that someday too. But its the easiest way to maintain access to your personal treasure trove of data. And that treasure trove is what makes you valuable. It's your experience and collected knowledge that makes you worthwhile to a client. If you ae worth anything to a client, learning a new software or tool should be child's play. Most of that stuff you'll never look at again. But some of those items will make you look like feaking genuis to a client someday.

Knowing when and why a business should change a process or business practice is the invaluable part of a consultant.

I can pay anyone to program but not necessarily to develop.

I can pay anyone to configure, but not necessarily to really understand it.

I can pay anyone to install SAP. But only some can really make my business sing on it.

FF

[Former Member]

Hi FF, thank you for replying. Your reply contains the most insight a professional consultant could give compared to all the others so far. I'm slowly digesting all your points there and I have to agree with most of your points there. Thanks again! respect

[former_member42743]

One thing I did leave out. the basics have really not changed in the 15+ yrs I've been doing this.

The MS suite of products is still used by almost everyone in business.

You can never learn Excel, Word, Powerpoint and in some cases Access well enough. The better you know these products, the faster you can work, and the better your stuff will look. So while an advance class(es) in Excel sounds very boring and no where near exciting as "Your Future in Cloud Computing" or "Distributed Programming in whatever...", it will pay many more dividends down the road.

Also, find your own time management tool that works for you and use it regardless. Every project will use different tools for that. Just plan ahead to use yours and do the mimimum required in the other for the project.

FF

[Former Member]

Hi Ananda -

You're asking the wrong question.

You should be looking for a consultant to help you become a better tool ...

(We're all "tools of the establishment", don't you know?"

Best

djh

[Former Member]

We have points here!

Is that what you are looking for? Is that not enough?

Cheers,

Julius

[Former Member]

No, I'm asking for external tools to aid being a consultant. Example, usage of Basecamp [http://basecamphq.com/] for project management. Dropbox [http://www.dropbox.com/] for managing files sharing between project members, and the likes.

[stephenjohannes]

I always thought that http://www.flyertalk.com was all that consultant needed in order to become "good". The only place that makes SCN look like amateurs when it comes to ponits.

Take care,

Stephen

[Former Member]

I see that they have their own problems with "gamers" as well... http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/mileage-run-discussion/930922-trick-negotiate-special-savings-lounge-...

@ Ananda: I can only speak for the security area on SCN. There we have a wiki and code gallery with some free tools to make your life easier.

But as David already correctly stated IMO, most of it is knowledge content with various types of information value. So you cannot download it all - you have to read it all (possibly with a nice search engine and useful search terms between you and the content...

Cheers,

Julius

[Former Member]

OK thanks Julius, I'm just surprised that there is limited exploration of these tools.

I'll take your advice to make use of SDN content which I've already found a tool for it via [www.findsap.com|http://www.findsap.com]

Thanks all for your valuable feedback/comments.

[Former Member]

I use http://www.google.ch/#hl=de&biw=1259&bih=599&rlz=1R2ADSA_deCH392&q=site%3Asap.com&aq=f&aqi=&aql=&oq=...

Works fine for me.

As the owner of the site you have mentioned is just as custom google page and blocks their "who is" information, I would recommend not using it. Something a'foul there. Perhaps they are collecting MYSSO2 cookies?

Cheers,

Julius

[stephenjohannes]

I thought gamification was the whole point of travel programs. I have never done a mileage/night run, but almost was tempted at times when I was single.

In terms of seriousness, I really think if you are consultant that travels full-time then you need a site like www.flyertalk.com to help you learn how to make your travel have more benefits for the same/less expense. There is nothing worse to start a week than a bad trip experience flying to your client site or repeating the same miserable flight/travel experience each week. It keeps you happier which is a key to being better in what you do.

That being said having a personal document repository of anything technical/reference in your area makes life easier over time.

Take care,

Stephen

[Former Member]

If you are using Firefox, you can search SDN directly: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/find-sap/