Managing Projects with Distributed Teams

Objective

After completing this lesson, you will be able to running Successful Projects

Project and Task Management

SAP Cloud ALM is a project and task management software that facilitates collaborative work management for teams. Its adoption has become crucial for teams and projects to enhance organization, foster collaboration, and boost productivity.

Managing projects with distributed teams can be challenging.
Tools designed for this purpose are known as task and project management or collaborative work management tools.
Recent studies estimate that the market for such software will grow from $7 billion today to $20 billion by 2030.
Popular tools include Asana, Trello, Monday.com, Jira, Wrike, and ClickUp.

How SAP Cloud ALM Compares

SAP Cloud ALM includes all the essential features of modern project management tools - and offers key advantages:

No additional license fees
Built-in integration with SAP Activate
Direct access to your SAP system landscape
Transport management capabilities
Supports the entire lifecycle of SAP implementation projects

SAP Cloud ALM offers all you need to manage projects and collaborate effectively:

Overview slide on running successful projects with SAP Cloud ALM, highlighting benefits for distributed teams and key advantages such as no extra license fees, integration with SAP Activate, access to SAP system landscape, transport management, and end-to-end lifecycle support.

Task Management

Task management allows you to distribute work to various team members while also tracking progress toward completion:

Task management ensures that SAP guidance and project work that users have created, such as tasks from Requirements, are displayed in a common place, allowing for better planning:

Visual of task tracking and project status with notifications—managers see real-time project transparency, team members have personal to-do lists of assigned tasks, and notifications alert users when tasks are assigned or updated

Task and the corresponding apps provide you with:

Complete project transparency, where the project manager can view the project status at any time and take corrective actions when necessary.
To-do lists for project member where they can see all tasks assigned to them, allowing them to track the status of their tasks.
Notifications when someone assign tasks to you.

The next slide shows the different view options for tasks:

Comparison of task views in SAP Cloud ALM—List view with detailed task attributes, Gantt chart showing timelines and dependencies, and Kanban board for agile execution—each customizable with filters and savable perspectives.

Each view can be customized using filters, and different perspectives can be saved. The list view provides a detailed overview of tasks, the Gantt chart shows dependencies and the timeline, and the Kanban board is especially useful for agile teams.

The usage of Deliverables in Projects

Deliverables are one of the core concepts used to define the goals and outputs of a project:

Concept of Deliverables as measurable, verifiable project outputs linked to milestones and phases; illustrates how tasks are defined from deliverables and are grouped by deliverable by default in SAP Cloud ALM

A Deliverable is any concrete outcome, product, service, or result that is produced as part of a project.
Deliverables are measurable and verifiable, meaning they can be reviewed and approved once completed.
They are usually linked to milestones and phases in a project lifecycle.
Many project managers don't start with tasks - they start with the project's deliverables.
In the next step, they define the tasks required to complete those deliverables.
In SAP Cloud ALM, tasks are grouped by deliverables by default.

Quality Gates

Quality Gates in SAP Cloud ALM serve as checkpoints or milestones within a project to ensure that deliverables meet predefined quality criteria before progressing to the next phase. These gates are critical for maintaining project governance and ensuring adherence to quality standards:

In SAP Cloud ALM, Quality Gates are prominently displayed on the project overview page, providing visibility into their progress and status. Users can create, edit, and evaluate these gates using the "Quality Gates" application. The gates can also be visualized on a timeline using a Gantt chart, offering a graphical representation of their placement within the project.

Each Quality Gate includes a detailed checklist of relevant checkpoints that must be reviewed and approved at the appropriate time. This ensures that all necessary quality criteria are met before moving forward. The ability to filter and list Quality Gates further enhances project management efficiency.

SAP Activate in SAP Cloud ALM

SAP Activate is a standardized SAP implementation methodology designed to optimize the deployment of SAP solutions such as SAP S/4HANA, SAP Business Technology Platform (BTP), and SAP SuccessFactors in different deployment modes - cloud, on-premises or hybrid:

Introduction to SAP Activate as a jump start for SAP projects (S/4HANA, BTP, SuccessFactors), emphasizing standardized methodology, phases, best practices, and accelerators distilled from thousands of successful implementations.

SAP Activate is one of the key building blocks for a successful project.

SAP Activate contains the distilled knowledge of thousands of successful SAP projects

In the past, however, it was difficult to use the SAP Activate content.

That has changed with SAP Cloud ALM:

Workflow for using SAP Activate within SAP Cloud ALM via “Choose your Roadmap,” integrating tasks, deliverables, roles, quality gates, accelerators (templates and links), and structured processes/best practices directly into the project.

With just one click (Choose your Roadmap), the content is integrated into a project
It contains
- Tasks
- Deliverables
- Roles
- Quality Gates
- Accelerator (Templates and links to web pages)
- A well-structured process and best practices

Next lesson