Project Management Basics

𝗬𝗼𝘂 𝗹𝗲𝗮𝗿𝗻𝗲𝗱 𝗵𝗼𝘄 𝘁𝗼 𝗰𝗼𝗻𝗳𝗶𝗴𝘂𝗿𝗲 𝗶𝗻 𝘁𝗿𝗮𝗶𝗻𝗶𝗻𝗴. 𝗕𝘂𝘁 𝗻𝗼 𝗼𝗻𝗲 𝘁𝗼𝗹𝗱 𝘆𝗼𝘂 𝘁𝗵𝗮𝘁’𝘀 𝗷𝘂𝘀𝘁 𝟱% 𝗼𝗳 𝘄𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗿𝗲𝗮𝗹 𝗽𝗿𝗼𝗷𝗲𝗰𝘁𝘀 𝗱𝗲𝗺𝗮𝗻𝗱… You just landed in your first #SAPproject. Excitement? ✅ Nervous? ✅ Your team lead calls you into a meeting. “We’ve gathered requirements. Let’s get the configuration done.” You nod confidently… But inside, you’re thinking: “Wait... where do I even begin? Isn't implementation just about SPRO and settings?” “Why are we discussing cutover and testing already?” 𝗧𝗵𝗮𝘁’𝘀 𝘄𝗵𝗲𝗻 𝗶𝘁 𝗵𝗶𝘁 𝗺𝗲 𝘁𝗼𝗼: #SAPImplementation isn’t just about configuration – it’s about building an entire ecosystem. And configuration? That’s just the paint on the walls. Not the foundation. Let me break it down for you like how I learned it, the hard way: 🔹𝗥𝗲𝗾𝘂𝗶𝗿𝗲𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁 𝗚𝗮𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗿𝗶𝗻𝗴 (𝟮𝟬%) Talk to users. Understand pain points. What are they trying to solve? This is where real consulting starts – not SPRO. 🔹𝗕𝗹𝘂𝗲𝗽𝗿𝗶𝗻𝘁 & 𝗦𝗽𝗲𝗰𝘀 (𝟯𝟬%) Designing the structure. Every field, every flow, every scenario. Think of it like architecture – before you even touch a brick. 🔹𝗧𝗲𝘀𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗴 (𝟮𝟬%) Your config is only as good as its results. Real users. Real test data. Real results. 🔹𝗖𝘂𝘁𝗼𝘃𝗲𝗿 & 𝗗𝗮𝘁𝗮 𝗣𝗿𝗲𝗽𝗮𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 (𝟭𝟱%): Migrating real-world data is like packing and moving homes. Get this wrong, and even the best config fails. 🔹𝗖𝗼𝗻𝗳𝗶𝗴𝘂𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝘀 (𝟱%): Yes. Just 5%. Important? Absolutely. But it’s not the only thing. And certainly not the main thing. 🔹𝗧𝗿𝗮𝗶𝗻𝗶𝗻𝗴 (𝟱%):  Because even the best system is useless if users don’t know how to use it. 🔹𝗦𝘂𝗽𝗽𝗼𝗿𝘁 (𝟱%): Post-go-live is when the real show begins. Fixing issues. Guiding users. Real-time firefighting. 🚫 Don’t just chase configuration tutorials. ✅ Learn the full SAP implementation lifecycle. Because when you understand the whole process: 🔸 You’ll speak confidently in meetings 🔸 You’ll connect the dots like a true consultant 🔸 You won’t freeze when someone asks “What’s your role in data migration?” 🔸 And you’ll stop being just a “config person”... ...and become a project-ready SAP Consultant, I made this mistake early on thinking config was everything. But the day I saw the full picture, everything changed. If you’re someone who wants to see how real implementations happen, and not just memorize SPRO steps… 🔥 Drop a #SAP in the comments or message me “SAP SD” I'll send you a breakdown that shows you what schools don’t teach. Let’s turn you into the consultant companies want to hire. Not just for what you know… But for the impact you create. #SAP #s4hana #SAPcareers #SAPcommunity #sapsdmentor #Amansharief #Amansapacademy 

As an SAP ABAP consultant, consider the following strategies to remain relevant in the current market 1. Learn New SAP Technologies:   - SAP S/4HANA: Familiarize yourself with ABAP on SAP S/4HANA, as many businesses are migrating to this platform.   - SAP Fiori and UI5: Understanding front-end development with SAP Fiori and UI5 can help you create modern, user-friendly interfaces.   - ABAP in the Cloud: Learn about ABAP for SAP Cloud Platform (now SAP Business Technology Platform) and how it integrates with other cloud services. 2. Stay Updated with Latest ABAP Features:   - SAP regularly updates ABAP with new syntax and features, like CDS views, AMDP (ABAP Managed Database Procedures), and new debugging tools. Staying current with these changes is crucial. 3. Enhance Your Skills in Related Areas:   - Integration Skills: Learn about integration technologies like SAP PI/PO, SAP CPI (Cloud Platform Integration), and APIs to connect SAP with other systems.   - Functional Knowledge: Deepen your understanding of functional modules (e.g., MM, SD, FI) to better understand the business processes behind the code.   - DevOps: Familiarize yourself with CI/CD pipelines, version control, and other DevOps practices in SAP environments. 4. Soft Skills Development:   - Communication and Consulting: Strengthen your communication and consulting skills to effectively interact with stakeholders and translate business requirements into technical solutions.   - Problem-Solving and Analytical Thinking: Continuously improve your ability to solve complex problems and think critically about business needs. 5. Certifications and Continuous Learning:   - Obtain certifications in relevant SAP modules or new technologies.   - Participate in SAP Learning Hub, online courses, and workshops to keep your skills up-to-date. 6. Network and Share Knowledge:   - Engage in SAP communities, attend SAP conferences (like SAP TechEd), and contribute to forums and blogs to build your network and stay informed about industry trends. 7. Adapt to Market Demands:   - Monitor industry trends to identify emerging needs. For example, there's a growing demand for expertise in sustainability reporting, data analytics, and AI/ML within the SAP ecosystem. By staying technically proficient, expanding your knowledge base, and being proactive in understanding market trends, you can ensure your relevance and competitiveness as an SAP ABAP consultant.

Most S/4HANA projects treat finance as a downstream activity. That's backwards. After 15 years in SAP Finance, I've seen what happens when finance isn't driving the transformation from day one. You get technical go-lives that work on paper but fail in practice. Excel workarounds multiply. Finance teams get blamed for design flaws they never controlled. Here's what actually works: **Establish Finance as Design Authority from Phase -1** Before blueprinting starts, map your finance capabilities and pain points. Your S/4HANA solution architecture should reflect finance strategy, not just replicate ECC processes. If finance isn't challenging the design, you're building the wrong system. **Embed Finance integration in every workstream** Procurement, logistics, sales every process generates financial data. If you design these without finance governance, you'll retrofit later at 3x the cost. Finance needs a seat in every design decision, not just FI/CO workshops. **Leverage Universal Journal as your transformation catalyst** Real-time consolidation, embedded analytics, automated reconciliation these aren't add-ons. They're core S/4HANA capabilities that change how finance operates. But only if you design for them in blueprint, not discover them post-go-live. **Lock in quick wins during hypercare** Accelerate month-end close by 30%. Automate intercompany matching. Retire legacy Excel reporting. These prove transformation ROI when the business is watching closest right after go-live. Finance can't be an afterthought in S/4HANA. If you're planning or in the middle of a finance transformation, what's your biggest challenge right now? #S4HANA #SAPFinance #Digitaltransformation

CEO running a multi-year, multi-million SAP S/4HANA program? Zimmer Biomet vs Deloitte is your prelude. A $172M lawsuit autopsy. This isn’t gossip. It’s governance. What happened (public record) - Zimmer Biomet sued its SI for $172M (Sept 2025). - After years of assessments, blueprints, and promises, the SAP S/4HANA program went live in July 2024 and collapsed within months. - Outcome: supply chain chaos, finance disruption, -1% revenue, $2B market cap hit. Old leadership out. New CEO and CIO brought in to clean the mess and to bring the lawsuit. The real lessons (systemic, not personal) 1. Phase 0 ≠ Preparation Most SIs run Phase 0 as a sales stage - glossy ROI slides, toolkits, “accelerators.” REAL READINESS is Phase -3 to -1: entitlements, IAM, 5Rs, governance DNA. Skip that, and you’re not building transformation, you’re staging rollout theater. 2. Checklist ≠ Orchestration A “2-day task” becomes 2 months when entitlements, budgets, and IAM aren’t aligned pre-contract. That’s why “minimal customization” always mutates into dozens of change orders. 3. Trust ≠ Governance 25 years of vendor history feels safe. Until it isn’t. Trust without competitive tension is lock-in by another name. That's outsourcing accountability with blind trust. That’s how “strategic partnerships” turn into ransom. In this case, invoices were paid under protest just to prevent AMS and cloud support from being cut off. 4. Clean Core ≠ Clean Architecture Following textbook “stick to standard” misses critical processes in EA design. or worse, shoves them into the wrong platforms (like BTP) just to tick the clean-core box. Without Phase -3 to -1 sequencing or a 5Rs review, you don’t modernize debt, you repackage it. 5. Escalation Always Has Two Decks When a program slips, the SI always brings two decks: one to “recover the project,” one to protect themselves legally. That’s not cynicism. That’s survival mode. The CEO commandments 1. Phase -3 to -1 first. Governance, entitlements, architecture, culture, before signing an SI contract. 2. Clean architecture > clean core. Sequence the fix or you’re redecorating liabilities. 3. KPI-tether every build. If it doesn’t tie to EBIT or risk reduction, don’t build it. This isn’t about one lawsuit. It’s about a system that sets even experienced boards up to fail - selling theater and calling it transformation. ==>> If your program hasn’t seen Phase -3 to -1, it’s not too late, but it’s already behind. #SAP #S4HANA #CEO #CFO #ProgramRescue #EnterpriseArchitecture #Governance #PhaseMinus3 #5Rs

Last week Wesley tried to renew his car insurance. He thought it’d take 10 minutes. It took 2 days, 3 back-and-forth calls, and an email thread with someone who had to “check with another team.” All they needed was his policy details to send a quote, and a payment link. The rep was polite, but the process was broken. Not the tech itself, but the glue work between systems, approvals, and processes. The hidden cost in insurance isn’t just fraud, it’s friction. That’s where CozmoX AI (YC W22) AI comes in. We’ve built Voice AI Employees that own it end to end for insurance companies. Here’s how it plays out technically for top insurers: 1. Caller Interaction (Telephony Layer) We integrate natively with SIP or cloud telephony (Twilio, Genesys, Avaya, etc.) to receive inbound or make outbound calls. Our AI Employee answers instantly with natural-sounding speech, no IVR menus. 2. Intent Recognition (NLP Layer) Using deep context windowing (vLLM + custom NLU), we detect whether the caller wants to file a claim, ask about a policy, or renew—no rigid keyword matching needed. 3. Contextual Memory (Session + External Memory Layer) Our AI Employee remembers. It pulls customer info live from CRMs (Salesforce, etc.), policy systems, or claims platforms (Guidewire, Duck Creek) via secure APIs. 4. Action Execution (RPA/API Layer) Once intent is confirmed, the AI triggers backend actions: Files FNOL Fetches policy docs Updates payment status Starts renewal workflows All done via REST/SOAP APIs or RPA if systems are legacy. 5. Real-Time CRM Sync (Logging Layer) Everything is logged: transcript, summary, outcome, next steps compliance ready and analytics-friendly. This isn’t a chatbot with a voice. It’s a full-stack operational AI built for regulated, high-stakes, high-volume industries like insurance. And the impact with an insurance aggregator we are working with - 80–90% automation of inbound/outbound calls - 50% drop in average handling time - 2x boost in customer satisfaction - Full traceability with structured logs + consent capture We’re not replacing people. We’re removing the repetitive glue work that stops them from working at the top of their license. If your team is still stitching together CRMs, call scripts, and manual workflows - we should definitely talk.

Automation isn’t a sprint – it’s a marathon. 🏃♂️ And just like any marathon, running without a training plan gets you nowhere. Here’s the reality: technology is rarely the issue anymore. AI is accessible, tools can be built fast – but what’s often missing is the bigger picture and a clear, strategic roadmap behind it. 💡 Because the true challenge isn’t building a great product – it’s integrating it in a way that solves real business problems and delivers tangible value. And that means: the focus shouldn’t be on tech alone, but on deep domain expertise combined with a proven methodology. At omni:us we’ve spent years refining our Claims Automation Framework: a strategic approach that embeds our solution into existing systems to unlock maximum value for insurers. Instead of running “random drills” like in poorly planned marathon training – we work end-to-end, strategically, with a clear focus on long-term impact. Our approach is built around four key stages: 1️⃣ Define the future – What’s the real business problem we need to solve? 2️⃣ Realize the future – Implement and integrate the shared vision. 3️⃣ Empower claims teams – Make impact tangible where it matters most. 4️⃣ Unlock automation potential – Data-driven, structured and sustainable. 🤖 The result? A solution that simply works – seamlessly integrated into your existing processes, and making a difference where it counts. 🚀 Automation isn’t a vanity project. When done right, it’s a powerful lever for transformation. 👉 Want a deeper dive? Our COO Martin Micko regularly shares behind-the-scenes insights into how we’re reshaping claims management. #ClaimsAutomation #Insurance #Innovation

🎯 Forrester says 53% of Insurance incumbents admit their transformation barely moves the needle. The culprit? Siloed spreadsheets, portals and emails choking daily operations, claims, invoicing and renewals. We see it daily when Ops teams spend 30 clicks and half an hour or more updating one member record due to clunky, labour-intensive legacy systems. 😅 Hard truth! Until data flows end-to-end and operations workflows operate efficiently, AI is lipstick on a pig. Here’s how we tackle it with BenefitNet & Quick Quote Hub: ✅ Map every insurer template to our unified member schema once; our template model does the grunt work forever. (No more copy pasting census data into insurer formats) ✅Trigger straight-through workflows for census moves, claims and invoices—no more Inbox scavenger hunts. ✅Surface live KPIs on Member movements, TAT, Claims, Sales processes so your Ops Team sees value each morning and handle what’s important first! ✅Clients get Proposals/Market Review in hours, not days, and your margin follows. Connected processes pay. What’s the ugliest most painful manual task you and your team are still tolerating today? #Insurance #InsurTech

Manual processes slow down good people. We see it time and again—finance teams buried in inboxes, Excel sheets and SharePoint workarounds. That’s exactly what we were asked to tackle by the finance team of a major insurer. The ask: Demonstrate how existing manual process could be reimagined into a highly automated process. The reality we walked into: – Shared inboxes checked manually – Spreadsheets used for exposure checks – Manual retrieval of FX rates, approvals, payments – Multiple handoffs and human dependencies Slow. Costly. Prone to error. The solution we delivered: In 8 weeks, our team defined and implemented a new target state—where human input is only needed for exceptions and approvals. We automated the full workflow using Appian and supporting tech: – E-mail monitoring + document recognition – AI-driven document processing – Automated FX/market data sourcing – Secure FTP and database lookups – API integrations for calculations, payments, and approvals – End-to-end workflow, with DocuSign and SharePoint connectors The result? A future-proofed finance process—intelligent, auditable and ready to scale. This is what intelligent automation looks like when applied with purpose. P.S. If you’d like the full before/after breakdown, drop a comment and I’ll share it.

Back in 2014, I was in Confluence every day managing cyber projects. From 2016–2018, it was Microsoft Project. From 2018–2021, it was Asana with my team and Trello with my clients. Since then? Smartsheets, PowerBI, Trello, and more. Here’s the reality: We’re well past the days of running projects out of spreadsheets and inboxes. And yet… Only 𝟮𝟱% 𝗼𝗳 𝗼𝗿𝗴𝗮𝗻𝗶𝘇𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝘀 use dedicated project management tools. That means 𝟳𝟱% 𝗮𝗿𝗲 𝘀𝘁𝗶𝗹𝗹 𝘁𝗿𝘆𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘁𝗼 𝗺𝗮𝗻𝗮𝗴𝗲 𝗽𝗿𝗼𝗷𝗲𝗰𝘁𝘀 𝘄𝗶𝘁𝗵 𝗘𝘅𝗰𝗲𝗹 𝗼𝗿 𝗲𝗺𝗮𝗶𝗹. That’s not just a workflow issue. It’s a 𝗿𝗶𝘀𝗸 𝗶𝘀𝘀𝘂𝗲. • Missed dependencies • Slower execution • Teams burned out chasing updates instead of outcomes Excel can be great for managing data. But for most organizations, the gap between managing data and managing execution is exactly where projects stall. 𝗠𝘆 𝘁𝗮𝗸𝗲𝗮𝘄𝗮𝘆: The right tool won’t fix a broken process. But the wrong tool will make even the best process harder. I’ve seen this play out across cyber, marketing, and enterprise transformation projects. Choosing and implementing the right system can mean the difference between constant firefighting and actual momentum. What’s the best (or worst) PM tool you’ve used and why?

Your project team doesn't need another email They need direction. As PMs, it's easy to default to communication through volume. → More updates → More check-ins → More IMs/Slack threads/email chains Real project leadership is guidance. So team members know what they should be focused on, what other stuff (blockers, decisions, etc.) is out there, and what progress has been made. Here's 3 tips to lead with direction: ☝ Cut the commentary Be upfront and quick on the main points. What's happening. What needs to change. Who owns it. When you need it. Keep communications crisp and let team members fill in what they need. ✌ Anchor to priorities Every update should provide reinforcement. "Here's where we're headed and here's how X gets us there." This is how you keep teams aligned when the work gets messy. 🤟 Ask "what will this message cause someone to do?" If the answer is nothing, don't send it. Informing stakeholders is important. But whenever possible, communicate with the intent to MOVE people. Effective project managers don't just talk. They guide complex teams through complex change to bring about something of value. Talk is cheap. Guidance (and delivery) is gold. 🤙