Quality is fundamental to the success of any software implementation. SAP implementations are no exception. Modern SAP landscapes rely on frequent and rapid releases. Issue-laden updates will cripple your velocity and destroy end-user confidence.
Traditionally, SAP projects involved long and arduous test cycles. Thankfully those days are long gone.
We’re living in different times and must be much more pragmatic., Spending months testing your SAP implementation is no longer an option.
Fortunately, modern test tooling allows you to implement SAP faster and more easily than ever before. In this blog, we’ll show you 3 ways to supercharge your SAP implementation quality.
Why Quality must form the backbone of your SAP landscape
Quality isn’t just a buzzword, it’s a vital aspect of any solution. By quality we mean how well, and how consistently, your software meets its requirements. Because SAP is so integral to your business, poor quality implementations can send catastrophic reverberations throughout your whole organization.
At one extreme you might have a complete outage, the effects of which are a bit more obvious. More subtle issues involve slow and incorrect responses, localized transaction level failures, complicated workarounds and incurred technical debt.
A low quality SAP solution will impact your customer experience and employee adoption.
You know yourself that software issues linger long in the memory, especially amongst your workforce. Once a system is labelled as difficult to use, it can be hard to shed that tag.
Plus, who has the time to go back and fix all the outstanding defects before the next release is due? Projects move too fast.,
Perhaps the high-priority defects will be addresses. However, what about those minor issues the ones that are not so significant on their own? These soon become too difficult to unpick, and you end up living with a substandard solution and unpayable technical debt. Over time these small issues add up and before long, you’re facing a death by a thousand cuts.
3 Ways to Supercharge your SAP Implementation Quality
1. Single source of truth
The first point I want to cover is often overlooked but doing so puts your project at great risk. If you want to ensure a high quality implementation, you must ensure that a single source of truth is maintained throughout your project, from conception, through development and into BAU.
Projects are successful when everybody needs to sing from the same hymn sheet.
All too often thought, projects changes fall through the cracks. As a project evolves, the business will likely make changes to requirements, then your developers find quicker and more efficient ways to implement solutions. Before too long, you’re building a different solution to the one you planned.
That’s not to say that your truth should be static. Situations change, businesses refocus, reality bites and thus, projects evolve. This evolution must be reflected in all documents and related to all parties. The only way to achieve this, is through a single unified source of truth.
A single source of truth should be defined and updated by the business and reflected in all other documents. Without a single source of truth, your testers won’t understand how the solution works, and won’t be able to mitigate business risk. This will either delay your project or allow defects and issues to leak through into live.
Further down the line, your end-users will be left in the dark because a) your trainers weren’t kept up to date and b) your solution is unstable.
Maintaining a single unified source of truth eliminates these issues. This must form the bedrock of any SAP implementation.
2. Rapid Test automation
Modern SAP projects are rapid and dynamic. If your tests can't keep up, they will be cut short. Manual tests just won’t cut the mustard, they’re not fast enough. There is too much pressure on high release frequency, especially with evergreen software releases in S/4HANA implementations.
One universal truth about software projects is that test times are always squeezed.
If you're relying on manual tests when the squeeze comes, you won’t be able to test as much as you need. When you can’t test as much as you need, your risk coverage will suffer. When your risk coverage suffers, your quality decreases.
Instead, automated tests give you the agility to keep pace with, and even accelerate your SAP implementation.
Automated tests can run 24/7 and unattended, they don't get tired or sloppy. They always remember to capture results and evidence, in a uniform and auditable manner. Plus, you can test as often as you like, every day even. They will accelerate your project, enable more releases and boost your SAP quality.
3. Accessible test results
Successful projects rely on up to date information. You need the ability to assess and understand your solution. It gives you the ability to address challenges before they become issues.
Test results give you a window into the state of your solution. They provide a project’s eyes and ears.
Test results deal in cold hard facts, either something works, or it doesn’t. It removes the human element from reporting.
If something is going to cause you a headache, it’s better to know early. Project teams can use accessible test results to pivot resources and plans where necessary. They help you to identify and remediate problems as quickly as possible.
To make this happen, of course you need to test regularly and rapidly, but you also need accessible test results.
Build Quality into Your SAP Project with Qualibrate
If you want to supercharge your SAP project quality, you can easily implement the 3 points above with Qualibrate.
- Qualibrate provides you with a single source for business documents, test cases, and training material. All these documents are generated from the same source, so they are always in sync and up-to-date.
- With Qualibrate, test automation is quick to implement and execute.
- Test results are easily accessible through Qualibrate dashboards. They give your whole project a window into quality.
Why not watch a demo of Qualibrate today? Watch it here!
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