Lessons Learned 2009

SAPbiz - January 13, 2009

2009 Support Pack Update Project - Lessons learned

Participants should brainstorm everything they felt was successful during the project life-cycle. This can include but should not be limited to Communications, Governance, Process, Project Mgmt, Risk Mgmt, Sponsorship, Staffing Levels, and Teamwork.

Communication - Tools that included Meetings, Emails, SAP Gui & Web messages, Conference bridge line, Status check-in line and the Project Wiki were utilized to communicate project status, roles and responsibilities and  system and service outages.

Was the appropriate volume/frequency of communication provided?

Was the information accurate and complete?

What worked well? Where did you see opportunities for improvement?

Wins - Communication

Challenges - Communication

Schedule - The project schedule was primarily based on prior years experience and it's start and finish are restricted to a window that is dependent on availability of SAP packs and must be completed before the start of the new Payroll year. Although not entirely flexible, there might be some opportunities to change details within our schedule.

• • • Now - October - Plan, create master script catalog, improve test scripts, move pending work to production
    • 10/05/2009 - Last date to implement projects until freeze ends on 12/24/2009 (Except Open Enrollment & Union Structures)
    • 10/19/2009 - Production snapshot at end of day - will be used to refresh dev & test environments 
    • 10/22/2009 - Last date to implement support & enhancement changes until freeze ends on 12/24/2009
    • 11/03/2009 - 11/08/2009 Unit Test
    • 11/09/2009 - 11/22/2009 System Integration Test (SIT Task List)
    • 11/23/2009 - 12/09/2009 User Acceptance Test
    • 12/11/2009 - 12/13/2009 Golive Weekend
    • 12/24/2009   Development Freeze ends

Could combining Systems Integration Testing with User acceptance testing become the rule vs. an option?

Could the development/transport freeze time be reduced provided process owners were available to validate and approve changes outside of the normal business hours? (i.e. nights and/or weekends)

How significant was the impact of bringing down production at noon on the Friday of the cut-over weekend?

Wins - Schedule

Challenges - Schedule

Testing Tools and Materials - Test Cases were located on the Wiki and Request Tracker was utilized for reporting issues. The SAP SH1 environment was updated with the support packs and was refreshed with a snapshot of production data taken on October? 

Were your documented test cases available, current and complete?

Was the test environment adequate for testing all critical business functions?

Was the appropriate data available for processing test scenarios?

Wins - Tools & Materials

Challenges - Tools & Materials