Programme
- Programme Director
- PMO Lead
- PMO Analyst
- Change and Adoption Lead
- Training Lead
Programme Staffing Blueprint
SAP S/4HANA rollout
The team shape and the sequence for an S/4HANA rollout: who is on in which phase, and the roles that are always scoped too late.
The phases
Phases, as SAP Activate names them.
Named the way the programme names them, so the shape below maps onto the plan you already have.
- Discover
- Prepare
- Explore
- Realise
- Deploy
- Run
The team
Who the programme needs, by stream.
Grouped the way a programme is actually staffed and governed, rather than by seniority or by contract type.
Architecture
- Enterprise Architect
- S/4HANA Solution Architect
- Integration Architect
- Authorisations and Security Architect
Functional
- FI and CO
- MM and Sourcing
- SD and Order to Cash
- PP and QM
- EWM and TM
- PM and PS
- SuccessFactors interface lead
- Sector-specific functional lead where the sector demands one
Technical
- ABAP and RAP Developer
- Fiori and CDS Developer
- BTP Developer
- Basis and HANA Administrator
- Integration Developer, Cloud Integration
- Data Migration Lead
- Data Migration Developer, Migration Cockpit
- Analytics Developer, Analytics Cloud and Datasphere
Quality and cutover
- Test Lead
- Test Automation Engineer
- Functional Testers
- Cutover Manager
- Hypercare Lead
Sequence
Who is on in which phase.
The sequence is the part that gets planned last and hurts first.
- Discover
- Enterprise Architect, Solution Architect, Programme Director
- Prepare
- Adds PMO, Basis, Authorisations Architect, Data Migration Lead, Change Lead, Integration Architect
- Explore
- Functional streams at peak for fit-to-standard, Integration Architect, Data Migration Lead
- Realise
- Technical build at peak, all developers, migration developers, Test Lead, Test Automation
- Deploy
- Testing at peak, Cutover Manager, Training Lead, hypercare planning begins
- Run
- Hypercare Lead, retained functional and technical cover, support model
Under-scoped
The roles that are always scoped too late.
Each of these is recoverable when it is planned and expensive when it is discovered.
- Data migration
- Scoped as a task rather than a stream, and started after Explore. Legacy data quality is discovered during Realise, and the go-live date moves.
- Authorisations and security
- Roles design starts near user acceptance testing. Testers cannot get into the system and the test window compresses to nothing.
- Integration
- Assumed to be configuration on a middleware tool. Every non-SAP counterparty has its own contract, and nobody owns the end-to-end error handling.
- Test automation
- Manual regression is planned once and then needed every cycle, so regression cost rises through Realise.
- Cutover management
- Treated as a plan rather than a role. Nobody owns the hour-by-hour sequence, and the rehearsal exposes it too late.
- Master data governance
- Migration is funded, governance after go-live is not, and the data degrades within two quarters.
- Change and training
- Funded last and cut first. It is the reason a technically successful go-live is reported as a failure by the business.
What we screen for
The hardest roles on this shape, and the evidence we ask for.
For each, evidence of a live cutover rather than a project they joined after go-live.
- Data Migration Lead
- Authorisations and Security Architect
- Integration Architect
Ask
Ask for the planning pack for your programme.
Tell us the shape you are running and we will come back with the staffing plan against it.