6 Considerations When Building Your SAP ERP Project Team

Building your SAP ERP project team can be a consuming endeavor for any organization. The success of the team hinges on creating a well-structured process to assemble the necessary expertise and soft skills, and a strong team ensures smooth implementation processes and allocates resources in the most optimal way.  

Below, we break down the key steps to building an efficient and effective SAP ERP project team. 

Building Your SAP ERP Project Team

Gain Executive Sponsorship

The first step in building your SAP ERP project team is securing executive sponsorship. ERP implementations impact multiple facets of an organization, which makes leadership support crucial. Executive sponsors provide the necessary authority and strategic direction to ensure that the project aligns with the firm’s objectives. Perhaps more importantly, executive sponsors can help to secure buy-in from key stakeholders across departments. 

Define Roles and Responsibilities

Once executive sponsorship is in place, firms should define clear roles and responsibilities for the project team. A successful SAP ERP implementation requires a mix of technical and functional expertise. The core team should include a project manager, functional leads, technical consultants, business process owners, and end-user representatives.  

The project manager oversees the entire implementation and ensures that objectives are met within budget. Functional leads and technical consultants both specialize in different business areas like finance, supply chain, or system integration. Business process owners manage operational workflows so that they’re accurately reflected in the new system. Finally, end-user representatives provide important feedback on usability and training requirements to secure a smooth implementation and user adoption.  

Select The Team

Selecting the right individuals for these roles is next. Firstly, team members should have prior SAP ERP experience and work well in teams. This means that they must be effective communicators who can bridge the gap between IT teams and business units.  

Organizations often supplement their internal team with external SAP consultants as well to bring specialized expertise and best practices over the course of the project, as these consultants can offer valuable insights from previous implementations and help to avoid common pitfalls. 

Establish Awareness of Workflows

Collaboration and communication are essential within the new project team. Establishing a clear governance structure and reporting mechanisms will help strengthen alignment between team members. The best SAP ERP project team members will possess soft skills that foster collaboration. These team members should also be comfortable holding regular check-ins with stakeholders to address challenges before they escalate. 

Prioritize Change Management

Another critical component of a successful project team is change management. A new SAP system may fundamentally shift how employees perform their daily tasks, and resistance to change is a common challenge faced during implementation, so the project team should be able to proactively strategize user adoption. Team members may thus be those with a background in providing training sessions, user guides, ongoing support, and resistance mitigation plans.  

Prepare for Post-Implementation

Finally, the new project team must consist of members who are prepared to handle post-implementation support. Even after the SAP ERP system is deployed, users will require assistance as they transition to the new system. The new SAP ERP project team should be able to handle technical issues and provide ongoing training. Continuous monitoring and performance evaluation will also help identify areas for improvement to ensure long-term success. 

FINAL THOUGHTS

Building an effective SAP ERP project team requires careful planning, the right mix of expertise, and a strong emphasis on communication and change management. By securing executive sponsorship and selecting the right members, your team is more likely to integrate successfully. After all, a strong SAP ERP project team can be vital to resource management and having a competitive edge.  

Contact our team to learn more about strategically building your SAP project teams.