1. Project preparation - This phase provides initial planning and preparation for the project. Each project has its own unique objectives, scope, and priorities. The deliverables described in this phase assist in completing the initiation and planning steps in an efficient and effective manner – like setup of project governance, project plan and project schedule are prepared at this stage.

2. Scope validation - The purpose of this phase is to achieve a common understanding of how the company intends to run SAP to support their business. It focuses on the rapid setup of environment that is available for validation workshop with business users to confirm scope and determine delta requirements that will be realized in the next phase to enhance the baseline provided by pre-assembled RDS.

3. Realization - The purpose of this phase is to implement all the business process delta requirements defined during the Scope Validation phase. The team configures, develops, tests and documents the solution in series of time-boxed iterations. Before the solution is released to next phase it is fully end-to-end integration tested and accepted by end users.

4. Final preparation - The purpose of this phase is to complete the cutover activities (including technical and load testing, end user training, system management and cutover rehearsal activities) to finalize your readiness to go live. The Final Preparation phase also serves to resolve all remaining critical issues. On successful completion of this phase, you are ready to run your business in your live SAP System.

5. Go-live support - The purpose of this phase is to move from a project-oriented, pre-production environment to live production operation and provide sustained support to business users to aid their transition into the new environment.

6. Operate - The purpose of this phase is to fine-tune the application lifecycle standards, processes and procedures established during the project and align them with operation needs. The central operation platform is SAP Solution Manager, which leverages the documented solution for system operations.

1. Project preparation - During this phase the team goes through initial planning and preparation for SAP project.

2. Business blueprint - The purpose of this phase is to achieve a common understanding of how the company intends to run SAP to support their business. In Standard ASAP 8 Methodology the result is the Business Blueprint, a detailed documentation of the results gathered during requirements workshops

3. Realization - The purpose of this phase is to implement all the business process requirements based on the Business Blueprint. The system configuration in Standard ASAP 8 Methodology is done in two work packages: Baseline configuration (major scope); and Final configuration (remaining scope). During this phase the solution is also tested.

4. Final preparation - The purpose of this phase is to complete the final preparation (including technical testing, end user training, system management and cutover activities) to finalize your readiness to go live. The Final Preparation phase also serves to resolve all critical open issues. On successful completion of this phase, you are ready to run your business in your live SAP System.

5. Go-live support - The purpose of this phase is to move from a project-oriented, pre-production environment to live production operation.

6. Operate - During this phase the system is operated with the help of the central operation platform, SAP Solution Manager, with the documented solution based on the transferred project documentation.

 

Each phase has a set of deliverables that are produced during the duration of the phase and serve as the input to follow-up phases. Each deliverable provides list of outputs it consist of and methods that are used to produce the deliverable.

SDLC (Systems Development Life Cycle):

A framework that describes the activities performed at each stage of a software development project.

It is the set of activities or phases that analysts, designers and users use to develop & implement in a system.

It encourages the development of software in a systematic and disciplined manner. It represents all the activities required to make a software product transit through its

life cycle phases.

Phases of SDLC:

                         1. Feasibility

                         2. Requirement Gathering

                         3. Design

                         4. Development/Coding

                         5. Testing

                         6. Implementation

                         7. Maintenance

 

Feasibility Study: A feasibility study decides whether or not the proposed system is worthwhile. It determines whether the project under analysis is achievable or not under the organization's resources and constraints. It makes analysis of different aspects like cost required for developing and executing the system, the time required for each phase of the system and so on.

 

Types of Feasibility Study:

1. Technical Feasibility: It compares the programming languages, hardware resources available in the software development and the programming language and hardware resources required for the development of   the product.

2. Operational Feasibility: It tests the operational scope of the software to  be developed. The proposed system must have high operational feasibility.

3. Economical Feasibility: It evaluates the cost of the software development against the benefits gets from the developed   system. There must be scopes for profit after the successful Completion of the project.

 

Requirement Gathering: It is difficult to make a solution if you don’t know the problem. It is the process of collecting the requirements.

Types of requirement gathering technique:

Questionnaires: Helpful when we have to gather input from dozens, hundreds or thousands of people.

One-to-one Interview: Sit down with client and ask them what they need.

Group Interviews: To get richer set of requirements in a shorter period. Usually 4 to 6 people participate.

Facilitated Session: Gather a set of common requirements from a group in a faster manner than taking interview each of them separately.

 

Design:

Here functionality of the proposed system is designed. It’ll describe how proposed system will work.

It describes the data to be inputted, calculated or stored. Write the procedures that tell how to process data and produce output.  UML Diagrams: It provides a ready-to-use and expressive visual model. In UML diagrams, Use cases, Class diagrams, Sequence diagrams, Structure diagrams

etc can be used.

 

Development:  The Coding part starts here. Programmers or developers are responsible for documenting the program.

Process of developing of program software is referred as physical design

 

Testing: It mainly checks whether the system works properly, user-friendly, meets requirements, reliable or not.

The purpose of testing is to uncover as many problems/errors as possible.

 

Types of Testing: 

Unit testing (White Box Testing): Individual units of source code are tested to determine if they are fit for use. A unit is the smallest testable part of an application.

Integration testing (Black Box Testing): System is treated as a ‘black box’ without any knowledge of internal implementation.

Alpha testing: Testing by potential users/customers or an independent test team at the developers' site.

Beta testing: Comes after alpha testing. Versions of the software, known as beta versions are released to a limited audience outside of the programming team.

 

Implementation:

Process of implementing developed system on customer site. User training Installation manual / instructions

Maintenance:

 

Once the product or system has been released, it will not be left out alone. Developers will still work on the software to monitor its popularity and performance. Support for installed system is provided here. Further enhancements, new requirements are done here.

 

Core activities and Role:

 

Core Activities RoleSoftware Requirement System AnalystDesign Tech Lead / ArchitectCoding DeveloperTesting Testing EngineerImplementation Developers

 

ASAP (Accelerated SAP):

 

ASAP is SAP’s current standard implementation methodology. The word “Accelerated” refers to the Tools & Information available in SAP to speed up the process of implementing SAP in an enterprise or organization. Accelerated SAP and the Business Engineer help you configure R/3 according to your own needs using proven, industry specific business scenarios and processes.

 

The ASAP Roadmap covers the different aspects and phases of an implementation. In the roadmap, a detailed project plan is included for the five phases. The Roadmap provides a standard repeatable procedure for implementing the R/3 System, including project management, configuration of business processes, technical, testing and training aspects. The Roadmap serves as a backbone to ASAP.

It is essential to create a project plan when you starting an ASAP implementation project.

Project plans have three parts:

Budget Plan: contains the projected costs by month, against the actual costs and calculates the variance.

Resource Plan: contains the resources assigned to the R/3 implementation. It displays the planned and actual number of workdays per month, as well as the variance between the two. It also contains a cumulative planned hours work sheet.

Work Plan: contains a detailed set of phases, work packages, activities, and tasks from the ASAP Roadmap. This information is organized in a project management-planning tool (MS Project or Excel spreadsheet). A Gantt chart is contained within this work plan to view schedules, dependencies and resources in MS Project.

 

Advantages of using ASAP:

Project time cut down in half. Lower Risk Reduced Costs.

Target Audience

The ASAP Methodology for implementation is relevant to the following roles:

Project manager and project leadership Project team members Application and technology consultants Solution and Application Architects Business Process owners IT organization leaders SAP partners

Benefits of the ASAP MethodologyThe ASAP methodology gives you a comprehensive way to streamline the implementation, upgrade, and enhancement of SAP software. ASAP offers you the following benefits.

Reduced total cost of implementation by embedding the principles of SAP Advanced Delivery Management into a streamlined and modular implementation road map for ASAP

Choice of Agile or Standard implementation approach of your SAP Solution Content-rich implementation accelerators, templates, and guides for

implementation projects from strategy to operations Transparent value delivery through consistent reflection of the business case Efficient project governance, quality management, and guidance for Agile

implementation projects, Business Process Management, and traditional implementation projects

Approach that combines user centric design, business processes and IT architecture

Coverage of the entire project life-cycle – from evaluation through delivery to post project solution management and operations

ASAP Implementation PhasesThe individual phases of the ASAP Implementation Methodology are:Phase 1: Project PreparationDuring this phase the team goes through initial planning and preparation for SAP project. This phase provides initial planning and preparation for the project. Although each project has its own unique objectives, scope, and priorities, the deliverables outlined assist in completing the initiation and planning steps in an efficient and effective manner.Phase 2: Business BlueprintThe purpose of this phase is to achieve a common understanding of how the company intends to run SAP to support their business. In Standard ASAP 8 the result is the Business Blueprint, a detailed documentation of the results gathered during requirements workshops. In Agile ASAP 8 the result is a Baseline Build and Project Backlog reflecting the solution requirements prioritized by business value.The business blueprint is a detailed process-oriented and technical documentation of the results gathered during requirements and design workshops or based on validation of predefined solution or service description. A blueprint consists of multiple documents illustrating how the company intends to run its business using SAP solutions.Phase 3: RealizationThe purpose of this phase is to implement all the business process requirements based on the Business Blueprint or Project Backlog. The system configuration in Standard ASAP is done in two work packages: Baseline configuration (major scope); and Final configuration

(remaining scope). In Agile ASAP project team splits Realization phase into multiple releases with number of time-boxed iterations focused on building up the functionality.

Objectives of this phase include:

Establishment of the solution landscape Implementation of the final solution in the development environment Overall testing of the solution within the quality environment Release of the solution for production (live) operations Delivery of training materials Preparation for data migration and data archiving Identification of value delivery concepts Performance testing

Phase 4: Final Preparation

The purpose of this phase is to complete the final preparation (including testing, end user training, system management and cutover activities) to finalize your readiness to go live. The Final Preparation phase also serves to resolve all critical open issues. On successful completion of this phase, you are ready to run your business in your live SAP System.This phase includes, but is not limited to, system tests, end-user training, system management, and cutover activities (including data migration). The phase deliverables also serve to enable the resolution of all crucial open issues. On successful completion of this phase, the business is ready to run the live SAP software system.Phase 5: Go Live SupportThe purpose of this phase is to move from a project-oriented, pre-production environment to live production operation.Support for the solution during the period immediately following production cutover. Exceptional items such as additional production support, exceptional business monitoring processes, and extraordinary technical support are planned and executed in this phase. At the end of the designated extra-care period, sustaining production support processes planned in final preparation and executed as part of go-live support become the core support for continuous improvement in the on-going solution.Phase 6: OperateThe primary goal of this phase is to ensure the operability of the solution.Each phase has a set of deliverables that are produced during the duration of the phase and serve as the input to follow-up phases. Each deliverable provides list of Outputs it consist of and Methods that are used to produce the deliverable.Solution operations are initially set up during the implementation project. The primary goal of this phase is to further optimize and automate the operability of the solution. Operability is the ability to maintain IT systems in a functioning and operating condition, guaranteeing systems availability and required performance levels to support the execution of the enterprise’s business operations.