2009 Support Pack Update Project - Lessons learned
Participants should brainstorm everything they felt was successful during the project life-cycle (the "Wins") as well as everything they felt could have been done more efficiently or effectively (the "Challenges") including a recommendation for remediation. 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?
Schedule - The project schedule was primarily based on prior years experience and it's start and finish times were restricted to a window whose start is dependent on the time packs are made available by SAP and whose finish 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.
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?
Testing Tools and Materials - Test Cases were located on the Wiki and Request Tracker was utilized for reporting issues. The SAP SH2 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?
Was Request Tracker an effect tool for logging issues?
Other (Governance, Process, Project Mgmt, Risk Mgmt, Sponsorship, Staffing Levels, and Teamwork)
Were the correct decision makers involved?
Was there cooperation across different business areas where true integration testing was needed?
Did the project have the right teams assembled with the appropriate team members?