The ASAP methodology

ASAP provides a proven, comprehensive, repeatable, and rich implementation methodology to streamline projects. It is a phased, delivery-oriented methodology that minimizes risk and reduces the total cost of implementation. It supports project teams with templates, tools, questionnaires, and checklists, including guidebooks and accelerators.

There was a lot of enhancement with each version of ASAP; here we will consider the latest version, ASAP 8.0.

The salient key features of SAP ASAP are:

• It brings a shift in focus from project to program value
• It has industry standard aligned project management processes and guidelines (PMI); ASAP 8.0 has also adapted to agile, irises, and design thinking built-in guidance
• Transparency of value delivery through consistent business case reflection
• It delivers content rich implementation accelerators, templates, and guides that help reduce the total cost of implementation
• It enables efficient project governance and quality management
• It covers the entire project life cycle from evaluation through delivery to post-solution management and operations
• ASAP WBS is streamlined into three levels with prescriptive delivery attributes (accountability, delivery mode, and so on)

Let's take an example of an implementation project and see how the ASAP methodology can be used for it. An implementation project typically has the following ASAP phases and workstreams:

The implementation roadmap has six phases:

• Project preparation: The project is formally initiated and planning is well under way. In this phase, it is expected to achieve the following tasks:
  • Identify project objective
  • Build a capable project team
  • Get buy-in from stakeholders and senior management
• Business blueprint: The conceptual design of solution happens in this phase, after collecting all the requirements. It results in (varies if we are using agile ASAP 8.0 or standard ASAP):
  • Baseline build (in case of agile ASAP)
  • Project backlog (in case of agile ASAP)
  • Detailed documentation of results gathered during requirement workshops (in case of standard ASAP)
• Realization: The solution is built and the integration testing is done. We also plan the performance test in this phase. It results in:
  • Baseline configuration
  • Fine-tuned systems
  • Completed testing and integration
  • Emphasized knowledge transfer
• Final preparation: End user training is conducted. A final check is performed before cutover to the new system solution. It is expected that the following outcomes are delivered:
  • End user training
  • Mock rehearsals are successful
  • Workload testing is complete
• Go-live support: The solution receives confirmation, ongoing support is in place, and the project is closing.
• Run: The operability of the solution is ensured.

The ASAP methodology is structured in workstreams. Each workstream has a number of deliverables that are to be produced in each phase. Some of the key project workstreams are as follows: