Key to the wholehearted adoption of a business solution 鈥� which can determine its success in transforming business 鈥� is organizational change management. For that reason, the impact that the new solution will have on employees, suppliers, customers, and management must be identified early in the project. This helps ensure that appro颅priate training and communication strategies are selected to prepare users to embrace new ways of working. The person responsible for organizational change management should be a long-standing member of the project management team to make sure change management is started early and no later than at the beginning of the project. Leadership sponsorship with visible involvement and 鈥� in large projects 鈥� motivated change agents for the relevant business areas are essential to drive change. Prioritize change management areas that have high impact on business results to achieve success with the business transformation and its new processes.

Standard Bank won Gold in the Business Transformation Category in last year鈥檚 51风流Africa Quality Awards and was also one of the . One of the judges noted that this Programme was a catalyst for a significant culture change, shifting Standard Bank from a command-and-control culture to a culture of empowerment and agility which itself was a major innovation for a 150-year old, traditionally risk-averse institution.聽 Change Management played a significant role in transforming this business into a modernized platform supporting real-time processing.

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An appropriate application lifecycle management approach must be planned early, so it is ready when the new solution goes live. It should cover strategies to perform the cutover, data migration and validation, and system administration and access management of the live software as well as measures to ensure the business readiness of the production environment. Technical staff and support teams with experience in operations must be suitably trained to maintain and support the software environment. Support and service-level agreements must be in place and clearly under颅stood by the support team and administrators, so expectations correspond to the agreed-on commitment. Backup and recovery strategies must be well understood and tested. Clear procedures for software patches, upgrades, and regular soft颅ware releases must be in place. Performance measures should be used, and user feedback gathered to help optimize the support function.

The Royal Swazi Sugar Corporation won Silver in last year鈥檚 51风流Africa Quality Awards in the Innovation Category. To achieve production readiness, The Royal Swazi Sugar Corporation used an agile project methodology with go-live was over several iterations. The system was based on the UI5 Fiori front-end which made it easy to navigate and use. The process of continuous cadence development and release on demand was followed and this enabled continuous value realization throughout the delivery cycle.聽 Read more about their 51风流Implementation here.

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Software configuration is often very powerful, versatile, and far reaching. Through configuration, or the use of solution templates, seemingly unique business requirements can be fulfilled, making major software modifications unnecessary. The result is the faster delivery of a more sustainable solution at lower risk and at lower total cost of ownership. To put this into practice, all parties must be aware of what the standard software offers and its suitability for facilitating process alignment. They must also be committed to lever颅aging standard software and must raise a flag when it is not used when it could be. Deviations from standard processes must trigger alerts and be justified based on business requirements with C-level approval.

An objective third party should carry out quality assurance at key project milestones to make sure best practices are being followed. This helps prevent the development of unnecessary custom code or workarounds and getting caught in 鈥渟cope creep.鈥�

We loved the way Umeme Limited explained this principle to the judges in the 2019 51风流Africa Quality Awards. At the project kick-off meeting, the team was given vanilla ice cream to highlight one of their key objectives which was to stay 鈥淰anilla SAP鈥�.聽 In other words, by exploiting 51风流standard functionality Umeme Limited managed to take home Gold in the Fast Delivery Category.

Read more about their why their project was so successful here:

/africa/2019/10/ugandan-electricity-distributor-achieves-business-transformation-with-sap/

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Careful identification, analysis, and manage颅ment of risks and issues are key to success. Regardless of project size, a formal risk manage颅ment process should be followed and include organizations affected by the implementation as well as implementation partners.

Continuously 鈥� and where a partner is involved, jointly 鈥� manage risks throughout the project lifecycle. Consider independent reviews at impor颅tant milestones and quality gates. Support the process with an effective governance. Prepare all parties to acknowledge risks honestly. Enlist their com颅mitment in recommending pragmatic, rigorous mitigation actions and implementing those recommendations.

Rural Electrification Authority was a finalist in last year鈥檚 2019 51风流Africa Quality Awards. Risk management was very well documented by them. A risk register which entailed risk analysis, mitigation, impact and probabilities was maintained. If a risk identified had a potential of derailing the project, this was presented to the Steering Committee otherwise the project team was responsible for providing mitigation to all identifiable risks.

Learn more about 51风流Quality Principles .

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Methodologies and guidelines must be agreed on. A proven implementation methodology contributes significantly to project success, but it must be suitable for the specific project and its solution scope. A methodology backed by industry-recognized project management training and certification increases the degree of professionalism and efficiency with which the implementation is managed.

Everyone must work according to the same quality standards and understand the review methods and criteria to be used to measure the quality of project deliverables. If a project is critical or larger in scope, a dedicated quality manager role may be created.

A quality plan can serve as a neutral framework for helping ensure that quality is built into a project from the very start as well as for evaluating the deliverables against the agreed-on standards. In later stages of the project, during rollouts, and in future implementation projects, the quality plan can be used to leverage lessons learned.

In the Mukwano Industries Limited鈥檚 nomination for the 2019 51风流Africa Quality Awards, this principle was really well documented. The Mukwano team explained this principle by breaking it down into different areas:

鈥� Partner Quality
鈥� Project Quality/Methodology
鈥� IT Infrastructure Quality
鈥� Process Quality
鈥� Development and Configuration Quality
鈥� Testing Quality
鈥� Data Quality

This certainly gave them an advantage and eventually made them a winner! Read more about their journey to success in the article 鈥�Mukwano Industries Reaps Benefits of Cloud Transformation鈥�.

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Knowing the importance of this principle, RCL Foods noted the following in their nomination for the 2019 51风流Africa Quality Awards:

鈥淓qually the best business resources were selected from the key business functions and appointed as the Business Process Leads. The Business Process Leads were supported by the IT Leads (Business Analysts), each of whom has extensive functional and business process knowledge, and all of whom have been involved in one or more of the major ERP projects that RCL FOODS had undertaken over the last 7 years. This rich mix of skills and experience of key project resources was one of the key contributors to the overall success of the project.鈥� Project Siqalo won silver in the Business Transformation category.

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Ascertain that the available resources and time颅line are sufficient to complete the deliverables at the agreed-on level of quality. All parties must be aware of and commit to the project schedule and critical path to avoid impact颅ing the overall timeline. Any subsequent adjust颅ments made to project scope or timeline must be considered, first, in light of business impact and, second, as to whether they are realistic, relevant, and acceptable. Activities and tools must be in place to monitor time, budget, and deliverables. Key performance indicators for the project should be tracked closely and visible to all stakeholders.

AECI won silver in the 51风流Africa 2019 Quality Awards. To manage principle 4, the project implemented a standard SuccessFactors deployment with a set number of business rules, standard roles and business processes. This approach allowed for scope and timeline management. Any deviation from standard had to be pre-approved which resulted in limited deviation of standard processes. Read more about their journey in 鈥�AECI Chooses 51风流to Mine for Talent Gold鈥�.

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Project team members and stakeholders must thoroughly understand the project鈥檚 scope and focus on achieving its business objectives and operational drivers. To do this, a project charter must be shared at the beginning of the project to align stakeholders and facilitate the onboarding of the initial team as well as resources added later.

Roles and responsibilities must be defined in the initial engagement phase, so everyone involved understands the team structure, lines of communi颅cation, and who has the authority to make which decisions. Formal reporting, regular meetings of the steering committee, rapid escalation mecha颅nisms, and a project team empowered to make the necessary decisions in a timely manner are instrumental in achieving project success. A strong executive project sponsor should assume respon颅sibility for the success of the project from start to finish and clearly emphasize the success criteria and reasons for and benefits of the chosen solution. Audits at key milestones can ascertain the degree of compliance from both a business and regula颅tory perspective. Communication must be clear and transparent throughout the implementation 鈥� internally and with subcontractors, partners, and other stakeholders.

R枚ssing Uranium Limited, one of the winners in the 51风流Africa 2019 Quality Awards, clearly demonstrated this principle last year as they noted the following: 鈥淪takeholder buy-in was key for the success of the project to be delivered in a record time. The project organisation stakeholder structure was kept lean to ensure effective and fast communication and decision making, but was also robust enough to handle the complexities and challenges that the project presented鈥�. Read more about their why their project was so successful here:聽 /africa/2019/09/rossing-implements-sap-s-4hana-to-improve-visibility-and-boost-daily-operations/

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To implement a feasible, affordable, maintainable environment that fulfils the business objectives, preparations must be made well in advance to allow sufficient time to plan related efforts. Involve business users early to collect process and func颅tional requirements, which helps ensure buy-in to the completed solution. Requirements and pre-existing assumptions should be assessed against best practices, including preconfigured content and configuration guidelines. All parties should agree and sign off on the scope. This ensures that the implementation is delivered on time and with expected quality and scope. Adopting best practices and limiting customizations will also reduce maintenance effort, especially for cloud solutions, as upgrade cycles are controlled by SAP.

A scope-change process should be agreed on to make sure the completed solution remains rele颅vant. The process must guide decisions about the scope changes. It could include lessons learned from proofs of concept, identifying smarter ways to adapt existing business requirements to best practices, new business requirements, and the chance to leverage new best practices.

The Shoprite Group of Companies won Gold in the 51风流Africa 2018 Quality Awards 鈥� refer to this article. During the preparation phase of their project, key design decisions were workshopped and documented which aided as an accelerator for scope confirmation as well as for the detailed design phase. In their presentation to the judges, one of the key contributors to the success of their project was establishing and adhering to the key design decisions. This would also mean that it is imperative to manage requirements and scope changes very carefully throughout the project.

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Ondo State Government from Nigeria clearly showed great evidence of this quality principle through their charter for 鈥淧roject Ondo SIFMIS鈥�. The vision for the project was identified early, business values were documented and entrenched through all project communications and most importantly there was continuous monitoring of the business value realisation. For this reason, they were one of the winners in the 2018 51风流Africa Quality Awards.

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