Let’s Give a Big Warm Welcome to the “Specialists”!

Although most any SAP-experienced or trained resource can install an SAP component (in three to five days, usually, starting with uncrating gear all the way to logging in to the new unconfigured empty system), fewer can actually configure the product to be useful to the developers (who will perform their own “configuration” and create a functional SAP environment useful to end users). In Figure 12.6, I identify some of the most common specialist roles that are staffed at this stage of the project plan.

The next few pages detail some of the challenges inherent to identifying the best people in this regard.

SAP Component Basis Specialists

When it comes to expertise in rapidly installing and configuring an SAP product or component like SAP APO, Enterprise Portal, or SAP CRM, nothing replaces experience. Read that last sentence again—unless time is really a luxury, training just doesn’t cut it here—you require real experience. With so many mySAP components, experience makes the difference between doing it once and doing it 15 times. I know. People like me have already done it 15 times in the lab, or during training, or through various hand-holding exercises. It only makes sense for many companies to leverage this experience the first time through, teaming their own in-house SAP TSO junior specialists with seasoned consultants and integrators.

But I’ve been around and know that probably more than half of all actual SAP software installations are performed by the customer’s internal staff themselves, in an effort to not only seek knowledge but retain it in the best way possible in-house. The problem arises when the SAP Component Basis Specialist is new to the team, and new to the particular component, or new to one or more of the SAP Solution Stack layers inherent to the solution at hand (like a particular database, or specific approach to high availability, for example). Not only does the “newbie” have to figure out how to get things done, obtain or get access to everything, and come up with a plan for installation, he also has little to fall back on in terms of “backup.” More often than not, this person’s backup consists of SAP online support/OSS, a few experienced colleagues who tend to answer their cell phones in the middle of the night, and so on.

In most cases where a customer is dead-set on using an internal person, then, it makes sense to transfer responsibility for new SAP Basis installations to current SAP TSO members, or at least to current IT team members transitioning into the TSO. Get them the training, give them a reasonable timeline to achieve success, and move out of the way.

Worse case, if an organization still needs to go “outside” to bring someone into the SAP Technical Support Organization on a full-time or “project” basis, consider the following qualifications and background of the best candidates:

• They have maintained a relevant set of core SAP Basis skills, and have added new or cutting-edge skills to this foundation.

• They tend to have a long list of not only repeat business, but repeat “make it happen” stories of successfully installing new SAP products.

• They possess a background characterized by diversity and adversity. The best folks have proven themselves in different and difficult environments, supporting a variety of solution stack alternatives and approaches.

The best outside Basis candidates have also probably concentrated to some extent on a particular mySAP solution, like supply chain or core R/3 or similar. In doing so, they therefore tend to have knowledge of the “open technologies” that SAP leverages to power these particular mySAP applications, like J2EE, Java, XML, .NET, and so on. Or they might have exposure to SAP’s integration technologies like BAPIs, SAP BW Business Connectors, WebAS, and so on. In either case, the ideal candidate’s general background of diversity is adorned by a string of recent successes in the particular product suite at hand.

SAP Component Functional Specialists and Programmers

With functional specialists and programmers, as with their Basis colleagues, top-notch functional and programming expertise equates to actual experience. These positions lend themselves to being filled by consulting organizations because of this fact. However, if an employee must be brought in, and the person in question is not directly experienced with the component or the particular mySAP solution, take a close look at their background. When it comes to newer components like Advanced Planner and Optimizer or Strategic Enterprise Management, even a novice functional specialist should still exhibit a solid foundation in the general relevant functional areas, for example, coupled with relevant training.

Let’s consider a candidate being considered for an APO position. If the candidate’s background is at minimum not manufacturing- and logistics-oriented (that is, MM/PP, with experience in profitability analysis), look elsewhere. Similarly, the best new CRM candidate will be experienced in sales, service, pricing, and other order management-related functions. And some of the best SEM/BW and SAP Portals people will consist of long-term FI/CO consultants.

In all of these cases, the top-of-the-heap candidates will also add a technical edge to their functional core competencies. As with everyone else in the SAP support team, the better the solution is understood up and down the solution stack, the finer the support that can be provided. This technical edge usually manifests itself in a complementary area, like what is discussed next—the EAI specialist.

Enterprise Application Integration Specialists

One of the most difficult of all staffing holes to fill in the SAP TSO is the role of the Enterprise Application Integration (EAI) specialist. These are the people who do the magical quasi-basis quasi-functional quasi-programming stuff, like setting up systems for EDI, or integrating third-party and legacy applications with the new SAP solution, or developing special integration points for faxing, Web communication, eCommerce connectivity, and so on. In all cases, the best candidates tend to have experience with ALE, XML, BAPIs, the SAP Business Connector, Exchange Infrastructure (XI, the replacement to the Business Connector, used to easily maintain interfaces to other systems), and third-party tools like webMethods. Sometimes this set of expertise is loosely referred to as the SAP-EAI toolkit. This toolkit, coupled with solid experience in the appropriate SAP components (like adding SAP Business Warehouse or Supplier Relationship Management to an existing R/3 implementation, or simply tying multiple R/3 instances together with ALE) creates a solid SAP technical integration background.

Note, too, that experience and exposure to these integration technologies will greatly enhance a newcomer’s ability to integrate SAP Portals and SAP Web Application Servers into new and existing SAP implementations. And given the fact that APO, CRM, and SEM will all be running on or via the foundation provided by SAP Portals and WebAS, the SAP-EAI toolkit will only grow in importance in the next few years. Couple this experience with deep SAP BW experience—as BW represents the primary data repository leveraged by APO, CRM, SEM, and other components—and we will create a veritable SAP integration dynamo.

Other solution sets may prove critical as well. For example, when it comes to SAP Strategic Enterprise Management, experience in pulling data from other systems into SAP is key. SEM relies heavily on messaging or message-bus functionality afforded by software like TIBCO, MQ Series, iWay, and many others. This is because every system in a company’s enterprise is ultimately folded in to SEM. Thus, the ideal SEM candidate not only understands SAP and SAP integration, but also general networking, systems integration, and data migration from non-SAP systems.

And contrary to what some folks might think, my prediction is that Microsoft’s .NET initiative will color more than a few SAP implementations in time. Not that J2EE (or ABAP!) will fade away anytime soon, or SAP’s Business Application Pages will disappear as fast as they came. Rather, the folks in Waldorf, Germany, understand that continued growth in both the mid-market and already crowded enterprise space necessitates integrating well with Microsoft’s product lines.

So be prepared to leverage candidates who have gained experience or exposure not only to .NET, but also SAP’s more mature EAI offerings. And be prepared to budget and staff small teams of integration specialists, rather than waiting for a single Superman to satisfy all of your integration needs. Bottom line, the arena of enterprise application integration will only continue to grow. And as SAP Portals, SEM, CRM, and other pent-up projects begin kicking off in earnest as the global economy strengthens, I believe that EAI expertise will be as sought-after as any SAP skillset to date.

Performance Specialists

Another highly sought-after staffing position is the Performance Specialist. Why? Because ultimately, the users of the system tend to really just care about how little they see an hourglass on their screen. Sure, the system needs to be configured correctly, and protected appropriately against disasters and so on. But it’s system performance that ranks consistently as #1 or #2 in so many post-implementation user surveys.

Performance specialists vary in terms of the specific layer of the SAP Solution Stack in which they specialize, but they can absolutely make the difference in a mediocre implementation versus a system characterized by blazing-fast user response times. The best of the best

• Understand the entire solution stack and how one layer impacts the performance possible from other layers.

• Possess a background steeped in multiple layers of a company’s particular SAP Solution Stack.

• Hold a core competency in a particular layer or two of the stack. That is, in all of my travels I have yet to find more than a handful of true end-to-end SAP performance experts. Instead, a team of two or three people typically tends to be required to address a real customer’s environment when performance issues crop up.

The most common performance and tuning specialists are predisposed toward the general solution stack layers. For example, I see a lot of server/disk subsystem hardware specialists, and perhaps just as many OS specialists, and a whole lot of network and data center experts. After this, the field narrows a bit, and fewer database and mySAP performance tuning specialists are uncovered. It is the latter that are most difficult to find, especially with complementary knowledge of your specific hardware and database platforms.

The surest way of finding expertise for new implementations seems tied to the specific vendors. That is, for the best Microsoft SQL Server experts, I tend to lean on Microsoft. For Hewlett Packard Superdome or HP/Compaq ProLiant expertise, see HP. For superior OS support, dig up the OS vendor’s professional services organization. And keep in mind what I said before—it’s nearly impossible to find SAP employee prospects or paid consultants who embody experience in every technical aspect of a solution.

When an SAP system landscape matures, and the SAP Infrastructure/Basis team matures with it, though, the body of knowledge created and developed onsite becomes quite impressive. Eventually, a few of the support staff become quite adept at maintaining, troubleshooting, and yes, tuning, their own specific solution. It is these folks who you fight to keep on staff! And for new implementations, it’s this kind of people you want to somehow locate for the benefit of your own company’s deployment of SAP. It’s no wonder that probably 50% of these top-knowledge workers historically have entered the consulting ranks after spending time on “their” own company’s SAP implementation or upgrade learning the ropes—which then brings you back to the various vendors, partners, systems integrators, and consulting firms.

What about the remaining 50%, the folks who stay loyal or otherwise tied to their own company, supporting the ever-maturing SAP deployment in which they learned so much? How do you make them part of your team? I subscribe to the following:

• You can’t have everyone—If they haven’t left, there is something keeping them at the company. Call it golden handcuffs, fear of the unknown, lack of the desire to see their families only on weekends, or simply joy in the position they hold today. Whatever it is, most of these people are simply not interested in working elsewhere. You will therefore have to toss a whole lot of money, quality of life, or something similar their way to even get their attention. But all of this is almost moot, in that you will be hard pressed to actually find these folks in the first place.

• Some are not ready yet—Look for the ones on their way up in their respective organizations, people who are “maturing” in their capabilities, who will eventually join their colleagues in both the consulting fields and at other companies. Until then, they probably represent junior people at best, and therefore a risk to some extent. But these folks are certainly worth phone-screening (and interviewing, if warranted). And depending on the capabilities required, or a particularly narrow skillset desired, they could actually turn out to be excellent fits into your organization.

• Some you don’t want—The remainder are probably on their way out, possibly because they are not wanted or needed any longer. Beware of this bottom 10–20%, the SAP stragglers! You will happen upon these folks quite easily, as their resumes will be everywhere on the Internet, and in half a dozen recruiter’s files. I only hope that you heed the interview process outlined in Chapter 4, check references diligently, and so on—the process, when followed, should weed these folks out nicely.

In retrospect, although the preceding considerations were tailored to Performance Specialists, the breakdown could easily apply to many SAP fields of employment, and perhaps IT as a whole.

SAP Security, Access, and Authorizations Specialists

Security is a whole field in and of itself. But when it comes to SAP, security takes on additional significance in that a good security specialist must have an understanding of each layer of the solution stack, especially in terms of security holes or weaknesses. For example, a good SAP security candidate will possess the following skills:

• Proven and demonstrable experience in the setup, configuration, and maintenance of SAP’s authorizations.

• As required, experience with Central User Administration, Global User Manager, or other user management approaches. This could easily include experience with Enterprise Portal or the older SAP Workplace Server, as well as Internet Sales and Internet-managed users for SAP’s procurement systems.

• Security analysis experience using R/3 WorkStream in Role and User Master development.

• A clear understanding of TCP/IP-based networks.

• Solid experience with firewall technologies, including SAProuter and some of the excellent products from companies like Checkpoint, Axent, Cisco Systems, and Nortel.

• Solid experience with the Operating System upon which the SAP landscape is built, from a security perspective, including Internet-access ramifications, directory security, and familiarity with virus protection products from companies like Trend Micro, Norton, and others.

• Some level of experience with the database management system in question, again from a security and access perspective.

• Outstanding analytical skills.

• Outstanding follow-up and follow-through, and detail-orientation, as good security is all about dealing with details while letting nothing fall through the cracks!

Note the focus on experience in the different solution stack layers, including deep SAP security and SAP component/solution expertise. It should also be apparent that the need for detail-oriented individuals with awesome analytical abilities is key—this position is not for everyone.

With the skillsets identified in the preceding list, backed up by requisite experience, the SAP security specialist should be prepared to address the following challenges:

• Protecting the SAP network and hardware infrastructure against internal and external threats

• Working with corporate or headquarters IT to assist in efficiently managing the SAP-relevant subnets in terms of IP address infrastructure

• Implementing an open security solution that enables integration not only with SAP but also with future bolt-ons and other extensions to the enterprise

• Almost instantaneously detecting and responding to attacks or less obvious suspicious activity against the SAP enterprise environment

• Providing secure connectivity for all mobile and remote mySAP end users

• Developing and maintaining SAP user-based roles, authorizations, and associated access-related matters

• Working with vendors, suppliers, and other business partners to provide selective network and SAP application-layer access to them (through a secure extranet or similar approach)

• Adhering to SLAs (service level agreements) derived from the various end-user communities and other business entities to provide a secure network characterized by high performance, reliability, and availability

• Defining, monitoring, and enforcing OS-level, DB-level, and SAP-level security policies and authorizations, both across the entire SAP system landscape and up the solution stack

Will such an individual prove difficult to find? Yes! So start your search early. As an interim solution, an external consultant might be pulled in. Ultimately, though, such a position is best filled by a long-term employee—the knowledge gained in performing this role is exactly the kind of knowledge that most companies should prefer to keep “inside” the organization.

High Availability and Disaster Recovery Specialists

Although High Availability and Disaster Recovery can be quite different from one another, I have chosen to address them together because both are enabled by solution-specific technologies. Further, the best high-availability personnel understand not only that disaster recovery is simply the logical extension to good HA practices, but also that HA and DR needs are driven by the business. With this said, truly top-notch HA Specialists, like DR Specialists, are difficult to find. Therefore, specialized DR consulting houses are often leveraged for deep expertise in this regard while the client builds up general or day-to-day expertise in managing and supporting the HA or DR solution previously architected and installed.

▸	To learn more about the role that HA and DR specialists play in terms of the actual solutions that they can support, see “The Disaster Recovery Organization,” p. 209 in Chapter 6.

Highly experienced HA/DR folks are also adept at managing changes to your HA/DR solutions, such as those resulting from upgrades due to either business or technology factors. And the best HA/DR people are experts in the products underpinning your specific high-availability approach. For example, if your SAP solution architecture called for implementation of a particular flavor of a UNIX-based active/active cluster, the ideal HA person will already have this expertise. And to take it one step further, the best candidate will also be experienced in the specific database version and release to be clustered (whether this is Oracle, Informix, DB2, or another), as well as the particular component and version of mySAP being implemented.

With such specific requirements, the best candidates typically come from a polarized background (similar to Performance Specialists), where core expertise is found in the primary solution stack layers of hardware, operating system, database, and SAP itself. Thus, I tend to see companies turning to Oracle for the most experienced Failsafe and 9iRAC consultants, to Microsoft for the best cluster service support, to particular database vendors for their best-practices approach to log shipping or transaction replication, or to specific hardware vendors like HP when it comes to supporting its various stretched cluster products and methods.

Finally, the HA and DR Specialists you prefer to have on your own team understand both your underlying solution architecture and business constraints within the context of maximizing uptime. In other words, High Availability professionals never lose site of the fact that they exist to minimize planned and unplanned downtime. As such, they are accustomed to doing what it takes to make their system available—working unusual hours, constantly balancing technology and business requirements, doing what’s best for the team and the customer, and managing themselves under the umbrella of important service level agreements are all integral parts of an HA/DR Specialist’s life.

Testing, Data Conversion, and Other Specialists

Based on your unique implementation, additional SAP specialists will be required at some point in time. For example, I have worked with and been a part of teams responsible for stress testing, regression testing, integration testing, data conversion, legacy integration, and more. My team and I assisted one company with developing their complete promote-to-production change management processes. In another case, I trained operations and help desk staff in supporting SAP R/3 on an interim day-to-day basis while a holistic enterprise management approach was still being worked out. I have also taken on numerous team-lead roles on projects, where I was held responsible to complete miscellaneous tasks and support timelines associated with almost every specialty mentioned in the last few pages. My point in describing all of this is just to remind you that not all tasks and roles fit neatly into the areas previously discussed, or map perfectly to the SAP Solution Stack; as the Master Project Plan illustrates, there are a lot of “miscellaneous” activities that simply need to get done by someone, on time and on budget.

Regardless of the activities or role, I suggest that you give thought to the following thoughts and practices:

• The more critical the position is to the deployment, the more lead time you require to find the best resource.

• In the case of short-term positions (like stress/load testing, where start-to-finish might only mean a few weeks or months), pay for experience rather than attempting to “build it yourself.”

• Where long-term positions are merited, seek to hire a qualified resource long-term as well; this is much safer, cheaper, and smarter than hiring a long-term contractor or consultant, with the added benefit of building core experience in-house.

• Jump-start your own team through the measured use of subject matter experts. Get them in, use them, learn from them, and get them out.

• Build timelines into your project plan such that they allow you or your team the luxury of doing the work of your SAP implementation yourself, while an experienced consultant stands by ready to assist and add value as requested. In this way, your implementation knowledge is built internally, not passively acquired later.

• In most cases where third-party resources are utilized, focus on knowledge transfer (learning from the third party) as much as on getting the actual job at hand completed.

▸	For more detailed information on the various functional/systems integration and stress-testing roles, including what each encompasses, see Chapters 15 and 16, respectively.

Be sure to kick your phone-screen/interview process into high gear again, via the Rapid Deployment Approach to staffing described in Chapter 8. And in the meantime, with the need for SAP specialists identified and behind us, let us turn to a much less obvious need. Surprisingly, it is also one of the most overlooked and underutilized SAP support functions established during and after the implementation.