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​Last week Speller International held their second industry event. After the success of their first industry event, they had high expectations. And the AGILE industry event did not disappoint.

It was an early start for all with a 7.30am kick off for a light breakfast and some networking before we got underway. There is definitely a keen interest in the SAP community to continue learning about the changes, development and trends in the SAP ecosystem, so the event focus, AGILE was a timely one.

The SAP community has seen arapid uptake of AGILE methodologyin SAP projects over the last 3-5 years. We had two exceptional speakers; Jay Jayaganesh (Deployment and Transition Lead at Lion) and Arun Govindan (Global Design Manager at Fonterra) who spoke in detail about the successes they have had using the AGILE approach.

Jay’s presentationfeatured two case studies of large SAP projects in the pure AGILE methodology. He outlined the outcomes of this approach promoting;

• Better relationships between stakeholders (from IT and the Business)

• The benefits from continuous transition to support due to the sprints.

Arun presentedthe Hybrid approach relating more to SAP enhancements and support which included;

• The combination of Agile methods with other non-Agile techniques

• The benefits of AGILE without having to change the whole software delivery process.

The conversations following the presentations could have extended well into the day and there were some robust discussions revolving around the topic. There was a lot of information presented, but here are the key takeaways.

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Key Takeaways

• AGILE does work in an SAP environment – many people came to the event with a skeptical view, but came out a little more enlightened

• AGILE works when all parties are involved fully- project team, business and the vendor. In other words, making EVERYONE a part of the AGILE team

• Cross-skilling is a value asset in an AGILE environment. It helps when team members have broader skill-sets in order to understand the bigger picture and be able to adapt to the fast-pace of the sprints

• The short feedback cycles in the AGILE world prevent time and effort wasted as you can quickly adapt and modify as you go

• Easier to prioritise work based on a backlog- due to the sprints in AGILE.

There was time at the end of each presentation for questions and after a slow start there were questions galore, triggering thought-provoking discussions with a room that was filled with predominantly leaders and managers in the SAP space.

The AGILE industry event was a success. Thank you to everyone who attended. It was great to see you all there. Special thanks to our guest speakers, Jay and Arun for providing such great insight into the world of AGILE.

Please feel free to comment below if you have any further points or examples of success stories with AGILE in SAP projects.

We are continuing these industry events so if there are any particular SAP-related topics you would love to hear about, feel free to contact any of the consultants at Speller with your ideas.