Swarming for SAP
Acceleratig Project Setup
Challenge / Problem
Our customer faced the challenge of setting up an Ariba project within a limited timeframe. Typically, this process would take months to gather requirements and input from subject matter experts and consolidate the data into a shared vision and strategy. The aim was to accomplish this in just one week.
Method
Having all stakeholders and team members present in the same location was a crucial factor in reducing decision-making time. We employed the swarming method to foster dynamic collaboration and ensure constructive behaviour while addressing the full scope of initial business processes and associated constraints.
On day one, we collectively identified the problem, ensuring that every voice was heard. This began with individual statements, leading to a group statement and concluding the day with shared outcomes and a mutual agreement on the problem.
Day two involved forming teams consisting of businesspeople, IT personnel, and Business Process Managers. These teams focused on exploring potential experiments to solve the problem. At the end of the day, the entire group gathered to collect, discuss, and decide on the most impactful, value-creating, and feasible options. A crowd review was conducted, uncovering opportunities, new ideas, and risks.
Day three involved teams diving deeper into prototyping solutions for each business process. Prototyping encompassed the business flow, data flow, and testing strategy.
Day four shifted the focus to testing the initial prototype and fostering collaboration between different entities to identify dependencies. Each team defined their unique working style, collaboration approach, and criteria for completion. The day concluded with a collective review.
The last day centred around collectively building the project roadmap and creating necessary backlogs for all teams. Once the roadmap and backlogs were created, the entire group refined the roadmap to minimize dependencies and identified the critical ones to be addressed, assigning responsibility to resolve them.
