Closing the Case Study
Let’s have a look at what you have accomplished while accompanying Sandra, Paul, and the entire 4S project team through wave 1 of the 4S project:
- You have discovered the dynamics of the different SAP Activate phases and the respective people-related challenges.
- You have witnessed how change management addresses and mitigates these challenges.
- You have learned how to plan and execute a broad range of change management activities within a realistic project scenario.
- You have observed the cooperation between an internal and external change manager and also between change management and project management.
- You have completed 41 practical exercises, allowing you to step into the shoes of a change manager in a fictious learning environment.
This experience can serve as a change management blueprint for your upcoming SAP cloud implementation, selecting the activities that are required for your specific context.
Exploring Helpful Assets for the Path Foreward
Being a professional change manager requires ongoing learning and practice. There are resources available to support your personal development and help you apply your training in an SAP cloud implementation project.
Self Assessment of your Change Management SkillsA thorough analysis of your current skills is essential to identify areas of improvement. In Unit 1 of this learning journey, we recommended taking a short questionnaire to assess your change management skills. If you have done so, please review your assessment and check if completing this learning journey has had an impact on your initial ratings. If you have not yet conducted the self-assessment, we highly recommend completing the questionnaire now.
Hint
The link Which Skills do you bring along to act as a Change Manager? brings you to a short explanatory video and the self-assessment questionnaire. The questionnaire helps you to identify the current status on the following five dimensions:
- Personal Traits
- Soft Skills
- Methodological Skills
- Specific Knowledge
- Practical Experience
A result interpretation guide helps you understand your ratings and provides practical advice on improving across the different dimensions.
Change enablement is one of the six dimensions of SAP’s organizational change management framework. In the BriscoBikes case study, change enablement was not within the scope of the project’s change managers, but assigned to designated learning and enablement experts. Yet, especially in small implementation projects, being responsible for change management often includes the planning and execution of learning and enablement activities. In addition, at least a basic understanding of these topics is valuable for every change manager. If you want to build up skills here, a specific learning journey regarding the change enablement dimension is a good starting point.
Hint
The learning journey Getting Started with Learning and Enablement in SAP Projects provides foundational knowledge about all learning and enablement activities within an SAP implementation project and a clear methodology to follow.
It qualifies you to explain the impact of SAP learning and enablement on user adoption and the implementation success, to set-up SAP learning and enablement projects as integrated part of an SAP implementation, and to define the required project roles and responsibilities.
The content is structured into the following five units:
- Preparing enablement based on a learning methodology
- Managing enablement planning
- Managing enablement execution
- Integrating learning and enablement activities in SAP projects
- Setting up an SAP enablement team
The learning journey is part of the enablement offerings on SAP’s platform learning.sap.com and can be taken free of charge.
In the BiscoBikes case study, you have experienced the change management support of an implementation wave, following the SAP Activate methodology. And you have learned that change management is an attitude, requiring more than applying tools. Nevertheless, change management is also about tools and templates. The case study has already provided many hands-on advice and methods for the concrete change management delivery. Yet, for a holistic overview, we recommend you familiarize yourself with the organizational change management content provided in the SAP Activate Roadmap Viewer.
Hint
The SAP Activate Roadmap Viewer is a freely available platform, providing comprehensive information and assets to support a broad range of SAP product-related implementation roadmaps. For every roadmap, you find input on the activities required in every Activate phase, for example regarding project management, technical architecture and infrastructure, or data management. Also some basic change management activities are embedded in the functional roadmaps.
Furthermore, the entire organizational change management approach is accessible in the Roadmap Viewer as a cross topic. The content includes an overview of the framework and its dimensions, as well as descriptions of the different change management deliverables, sorted by activate phase. For each deliverable, you find information on the respective implementation steps, structured in tasks and associated procedures. Every procedure is supplemented with a so-called accelerator (e.g. a tool, template, or link with helpful information), providing additional guidance for the practical change management execution.
Generally, the content is free of charge. However, access to the accelerators requires an upfront registration.
It’s Your Turn: Time to Practice!
The final exercise of this learning journey enables you to reflect on your individual learning process and plan the next steps toward further professionalization as a change manager.
Take 20 minutes to complete exercise 42 in your workbook.
Closing the Learning Journey
Now, you have completed the learning journey on organizational change management in SAP cloud projects. Together with the practical guidance and accelerators in the SAP Activate Roadmap Viewer, you are well equipped to get started. Through your work, you will significantly contribute to rapid and sustainable user adoption, foster ongoing innovation, and thereby ensure the overall success of the SAP implementation.
When acting as change manager on an SAP cloud project, you may find it helpful to revisit the learning journey to refresh your knowledge and gain inspiration for the detailed planning and execution of specific change management activities.
We wish you all the best and great success on your personal change management journey!