Use:

The ASAP Roadmap provides the methodology for implementing and continuously optimizing
your SAP System. It divides the implementation process into five phases and offers detailed
Project Plans to assist you (in Microsoft Project format). The documentation stored at each level
of the Roadmap tree structure contains recommendations on implementing your SAP System
and links to helpful tools and accelerators.

ASAP: Accelerated Systems Application and Products in Data Processing
All implementation projects have the the following phases:
Scoping - What is to be implemented i.e. which submodules are to be implemented
some clients may not require credit management for example. Look at the project
scope document carefully it will tell you what SAP sub-modules in SAP you should
be prepared for. Usually the sales people along with project manager do it.
As is - Here you understand the existing business processes of the client . Your
BPOcollect all the ISO-documentation (if client is ISO certified), reports and forms at
this stage and you analyse how and when the reports/forms are generated, where the
data is coming from. You also do a Level -2 training for your BPO so he is made
aware of all the required transactions in SAP.
Once this is over BPO can start learning with the consultants help more about SAP.
This is crucial because if you miss out any transactions the BPO may forget about
some of his Business processes which may come up later. It is a good practice to ask
the BPO to make flow charts to explain business processes.
To-Be - Parallely you map these processes to SAP. Processes that you are not sure of
as to whether they are present in SAP or not you try to do a configuration of those
processes, and along with the BPO(Business process owner he is the clients employee
who knows about the clients business processes probably a middle management guy,
ther can more than one), BPO involvement is required as he may be able to tell you
his requirements better. Once you do the business modelling you
will also be made aware of the gaps between as-is and to-be , here decisons have to be
made as to wether a ABAP development/system modification is required or not and so
on. Involve the BPO as much as possible and document everything it is good practice
do not be lazy about it.
Business blueprint: Here the as-is and to-be and gap analysis is explained. This is the
document that you will be using to do your configuration in the realization phase.
Realization phase: Here you do the configuration in the development server (there are
three clients -development,quality, production). You also decide on the master data
format, so that BPO can go collect the master data. You also gove ABAP
specifications for forms, reports etc, system modifications etc. Unit testing: Your
BPOs and a few key users sit down and test your configuration in your module only.
It is good to test the BDCs that you need for uploading data at this stage so you have
more realistic data and your BDCs are tested.
Integration testing:
Once all modules unit testing is over then the configuration is trasported to the Quality
server, where testing for all the modules is done by BPOs and end user, this is to
check if any problems are there in integration between various modules. Once all is
okay from the QA server config is transported to the production server.
Go live preparation
Data uploading: The collected master data is checked and the uploaded into
production server(sever and client I have used interchangeably). Now you are ready
for go live i.e. users can now use the production server.
Requirement Gathering:
This phase is for gathering as much information as we can for smooth implementation. You should
make it sure that dependencies have been taking into consideration before defining the goals for
next stage i.e. blueprinting
Business blueprinting:
This is the stage where youd based on deliver ables of requirement gathering stage define following
documents.
As-IS
To-Be
GAP Analysis
Questionnaire could be used for gathering the required information at this stage. SAP has a pre-
defined Question and Answers Database also known as QADB created to facilitate the blueprinting.
In addition to the QADB tool, weve something called as Issues Database which acts as a central
repository for all the concerns and open issues related to the implementation. This way, youd be in
a better position to assign a resource to work on open issues.
Realization:
With functional experts ready with the results of stage 2, SAP system configuration could be started
here. Initially youd work on baseline configurations also called as minimal configuration. Once
baseline system is ready, you should fine tune it to map into the business requirement.
Final Preparation:
This is the stage where system that youve developed undergoes rigorous testing cycles. Stress
testing, capacity testing & performance testing are some of the tests that your team would perform. It
is at this stage you would have SIT and BAT. Once you get satisfactory results from testing cycle,
youre ready to go live.
Go-Live:
This stage needs no explanation. We put the production system in place and perform the cut-over
activities. There is hyper care as well but I would rather not go into explaining about it.
By now, you must have got enough idea about what ASAP methodology is all about. You might
have worked on tens of implementations but still unaware of what this methodology is called as.
Even I was unaware. Its a good practice to know everything that we work on. Isnt it?
ASAP methodology framework is provided to end users in four variants (pre-selections)) to support various deployment
strategies for implementation of SAP system. The following ASAP 8 pre-selection variants are available for end-users in SAP
Service Marketplace (and also in SAP Solution Manager starting with ST-ICO SP37 content package release level):


Simplified Rapid Deployment Solution Experience / Assemble to Order Project


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.

Activity Sub-Activity Description
Project
preparation
Craft solution vision
Refine and communicate a SOLUTION VISION of the future-state of
the SAP solution, to sketch a design that meets both business and
financial requirements. The focus should be on the companys core
business and how the SAP solution will better enable that core business
to be successful. Some of the guidance and key requirements for how to
put together an ERP and SAP business case for ROI, business benefit,
and success includes focusing on competitive pressures, value
propositions, and how the solution enables success.
Design and initially staff
the SAP TSO
Design and staff the key positions of the SAP Technical Support
Organization (TSO), the organization that is charged with addressing,
designing, implementing and supporting the SAP solution.
Sizing and
blueprinting
Perform cost of
ownershipanalysis
Perform a COST OF OWNERSHIP ANALYSIS to determine how to get
the best business solution for the least money i.e. to determine where and
when the costs are incurred within the context of the SAP solution stack.
Identify high
availability anddisaster
recoveryrequirements
Determine all HIGH AVAILABILITY and DISASTER RECOVERY
REQUIREMENTS, to plan what to do with later downtime of the SAP
system
Engage SAPsolution
stackvendors
Select the best SAP hardware and software technology partners for all
layers and components of the SAP SOLUTION STACK, based on a
side-by-side sizing comparison
Staff TSO
Staff the bulk of the TSO, i.e. fill the positions that directly support the
near-term objectives of the implementation, which are to develop and
begininstallation/implementation of the SAP data center.
Execute training
Train the various members of the SAP TSO, like data
center specialists, high availability specialist and network specialists and
train the end-users to give all the required SAP knowledge and skills
Setup SAP DATA
CENTER
Build a new SAP DATA CENTER facility or transform the current data
center into a foundation capable of supporting the SAP SOLUTION
STACK
Perform installations
Install the (My)SAP components and technological foundations like a
web application server or enterprise portal.
Round out support for
SAP
Identify and staff the remaining TSO roles, e.g. roles that relate to help
desk work and other such support providing work.
SAP
functional
development
Address Change
Management
Develop a planned approach to the changes in the organization.
The objective is to maximize the collective efforts of all people involved
in the change and minimize the risk of failure of implementing the
changes related to the SAP implementation.
Address SAP systems and
operations management
Create a foundation for the SAP systems management and SAP
computer operations, by creating a SAP OPERATIONS MANUAL and
by evaluating SAP management applications.
Perform functional,
integration and regression
tests
Test the SAP business processes, by executing functional tests to ensure
that business processes work, integration tests to ensure that the
organizations business processes work together with other business
processes and regression tests to prove that a specific set of data and
processes yield consistent and repeatable results.
Final
Preparation
Perform systems and
stress tests
Plan, script, execute and monitor SAP STRESS TESTS, to see if the
expectations of the end users, defined in service level agreements, will be
met.
Prepare for cutover
Plan, prepare and execute the CUTOVER, by creating a CUTOVER
PLAN that describes all cutover tasks that have to be performed before
the actual go-live
Go Live Turn on the SAP system for the end-users

Implementation processes[edit]
Project preparation[edit]
The project preparation phase, depicted below, focuses at two main activities, i.e. to make a setup for the
TSO and to define a solution vision. These activities allow an organization to put it on the right track
towards implementation.

Design and initially staff the SAP TSO
The first major step of the project preparation phase is to design and initially staff an SAP technical
support organization (TSO), which is the organization that is charged with addressing, designing,
implementing and supporting the SAP solution. This can be programmers, project management,
database administrators, test teams, etc. At this point, the focus should be at staffing the key positions of
the TSO, e.g. the high-level project team and SAP professionals like the senior database
administrator and the solution architect. Next to that, this is the time to make decisions about choosing for
internal staff members or external consultants.
Craft solution vision
The second project preparation job is to define a so-called solution vision, i.e. a vision of the future-state
of the SAP solution, where it is important to address both business and financial requirements (budgets).
The main focus within the vision should be on the companys core business and how the SAP solution will
better enable that core business to be successful. Next to that, the shortcomings of the current systems
should be described and short but clear requirements should be provided regarding availability
(uptime), security, manageability and scalability of the SAP system.
Sizing and blueprinting[edit]
The next phase is often referred to as the sizing and blueprinting phase and forms the main chunk of
the implementation process. The phase is illustrated below.
This phase starts with performing a total cost of ownership analysis (TCO analysis) to determine how to
get the best business solution at the lowest costs. This means to compare SAP solution stack options and
alternatives and then determine what costs each part of the stack will bring and when these costs will be
incurred. Parts of the stack are for example the hardware, operating system and database, which form
the acquisition costs. Next to that, there should be taken a look at recurring costs like maintenance costs
and downtime costs. Instead of performing a complete TCO analysis for various solution stack
alternatives that would like to compare, it can be wise just to do a so-called delta analysis, where only the
differences between solutions (stacks) are identified and analyzed. The image at the right depicts the
essence of a delta analysis.
Identify high availability and disaster recovery requirements
The next step is identifying the high availability requirements and the more serious disaster
recovery requirements. This is to plan what to do with later downtime of the SAP system, caused by e.g.
hardware failures, application failures or power outages. It should be noted that it is very important to
calculate the cost of downtime, so that an organization has a good idea of its actual availability
requirements.
Engage SAP solution stack vendors
A true sizing process is to engage the SAP solution stack vendors, which is the next step. This means
selecting the best SAP hardware and software technology partners for all layers and components of the
solution stack, based on a side-by-side sizing comparison. The most important factors that are of
influence here are the estimated numbers of (concurrent) users and batch sizes. A wise thing to do is to
involve SAP AG itself to let them create a sizing proposal stating the advised solution stack, before
moving to SAPs technology partners/SAP vendors, likeAccenture, HP and IBM. A simplified solution
stack is depicted at the right, showing the many layers for which software and hardware has to be
acquired. Note the overlap with the OSI model.
Staff TSO
The TSO (Technical Support Organisation) is the most important resource for an organization that is
implementing SAP, so staffing the TSO is a vital job which can consume a lot of time. In a previous
phase, the organization should already have staffed the most vital positions. At this point the organization
should staff the bulk of the TSO, i.e. fill the positions that directly support the near-term objectives of
the implementation, which are to develop and begin the installation/implementation of the SAP data
center. Examples are: data center experts, network infrastructureexperts, security specialists
and database administration experts.
There are many ways to find the right people within or outside the organization for all of the TSO positions
and it depends on the organization how much time it wants to spend on staffing.
Training
One of the most vital stages of the implementation process is training. Very few people within an
organization are SAP experts or even have worked with SAP software. It is therefore very important to
train the end users but especially the SAP TSO: the people who design and implement the solution. Many
people within the TSO need all kinds of training. Some examples of these positions:
SAP Network Specialists
SAP Database Administrators
SAP Security specialists
Documentation specialists
Et cetera
All of these people need to acquire the required SAP knowledge and skills or even
SAP certifications through training. Moreover, people need to learn to do business in a totally new way.
To define how much SAP training every person needs, a company can make use of a skillset matrix. With
this matrix, a manager can identify who possesses what knowledge, to manage and plan training, by
defining the height of expertise with a number between e.g. 1 and 4 for each skill for each employee.
Setup SAP data center
The next step is to set up the SAP data center. This means either building a new data center facility or
transforming the current data center into a foundation capable of supporting the SAPsolution stack, i.e. all
of the technology layers and components (SAP software products) in a productive SAP installation. The
most important factor when designing the data center is availability. The high availability and disaster
recovery requirements which should have been defined earlier, give a good idea of the required data
center requirements to host the SAP software. Data center requirements can be a:
Physical requirement like power requirements
Rack requirement
Network infrastructure requirement or
Requirement to the network server.
Perform installations
The following step is to install the required SAP software parts which are called components and
technological foundations like a web application server or enterprise portals, to a state ready for business
process configuration. The most vital sub steps are to prepare your OS, prepare the database server and
then start installing SAP software. Here it is very important to use installation guides, which are published
for each SAP component or technology solution by SAP AG. Examples of SAP components are:
R/3 Enterprise Transaction Processing
mySAP BI Business Information Warehouse
mySAP CRM Customer Relationship Management
mySAP KW Knowledge Warehouse
mySAP PLM Product Lifecycle Management
mySAP SCM Supply Chain Management
mySAP SEM Strategic Enterprise Management
mySAP SRM Supplier Relationship Management
mySAP HCM Human Capital Management
Round out support for SAP
Before moving into the functional development phase, the organization should identify and staff the
remaining TSO roles, e.g. roles that relate to helpdesk work and other such support providing work.
Realization[edit]
The next phase is the functional development phase, where it is all about change
management and testing. This phase is depicted below.

Address change management
The next challenge for an organization is all about change management / change control, which means to
develop a planned approach to the changes the organization faces. The objective here is to maximize the
collective efforts of all people involved in the change and to minimize the risk of failure of implementing
the changes related to the SAP implementation.
The implementation of SAP software will most surely come with many changes and an organization can
expect many natural reactions, i.e. denial, to these changes. To fight this, it is most important to create a
solid project team dedicated to change management and to communicate the solution vision and goals of
this team. This team should be prepared to handle the many change issues that come from various
sources like:
End-user requests
End-User regular activities
Operations
Data center team
DBA group
Systems management
SAP systems and operations management
Next thing is to create a foundation for the SAP systems management and SAP computer operations, by
creating a SAP operations manual and by evaluating SAP management applications. The manual is a
collection of current state system documentation, day-to-day and other regularly scheduled operations
tasks, various installation and operations checklists and how-to process documents.
Functional, integration and regression testing
Testing is very important before going live with any system. Before going live with a SAP system, it is vital
to do many different kinds of testing, since there is often a large, complex infrastructure of hardware and
software involved. Both requirements as well as quality parameters are to be tested. Important types of
testing are:
Functional testing: to test using functional use cases, i.e. a set of conditions or variables under which
a tester will determine if a certain business process works
Integration testing
Regression testing
All tests should be preceded by creating solid test plans.
Agreements will be met. This can be done with SAPs standard application benchmarks, to benchmark
the organizations configurations against configurations that have been tested by SAPs hardware
technology partners. Again, a test plan should be created at first.
Final preparation[edit]
Prepare for cutover
The final phase before going live with SAP is often referred to as the cutover phase, which is the process
of transitioning from one system to a new one. The organization needs to plan, prepare and execute the
cutover, by creating a cutover plan that describes all cutover tasks that have to be performed before the
actual go-live. Examples of cutover tasks are:
Review and update all systems-related operations procedures like backup policies and system
monitoring
Assign ownership of SAPs functional processes to individuals
Let SAP AG do a GoingLive check, to get their blessing to go live with the system
Lock down the system, i.e. do not make any more changes to the SAP system
Go live & Support[edit]
All of the previously described phases all lead towards this final moment: the go-live. Go-live means to
turn on the SAP system for the end-users and to obtain feedback on the solution and to monitor the
solution. It is also the moment where product software adoption comes into play. More information on this
topic:
Product Software Adoption: Big Bang Adoption
Product Software Adoption: Parallel Adoption
Product Software Adoption: Phased Adoption
3.) The Blueprint is the keystone used as the lighthouse who must guide the whole project. A blueprint
should never be a merely mapping of IT systems. In fact a blueprint is bringing the strategy of a company
into execution through defining its processes across all business areas. Many projects have failed
because the focus was on having people with SAP knowledge, but with no business skills and so defining
something that works...wrongly. Just remember, processes must change across time, and a manual error
automated could be repeated infinitely.