Organizational change is often the hardest part of any SAP implementation.
In this post, we’ll explore how SAP Activate incorporates OCM practices across each phase, helping ensure people, processes, and performance stay aligned throughout the transformation.
SAP’s organizational change management (OCM) methodology is fully aligned with SAP Activate.
The figure below illustrates the alignment of all OCM deliverables with the different SAP Activate phases. A core set of OCM deliverables is located within the solution adoption workstream for all roadmaps. In addition, the full OCM methodology is also accessible as a cross-topic in SAP Activate Roadmap Viewer.
The OCM methodology supports organizations of all sizes embarking on SAP projects, offering a systematic approach to effectively manage the people side of such transformations. It provides guidance on how to set up and implement OCM throughout the entire project lifecycle.
The sections of this blog post will help explain how OCM addresses the unique dynamics and challenges of each SAP Activate phase, with a focus on providing a general overview. For each deliverable, this post contains step-by-step descriptions of the required tasks and procedures, supplemented with hands-on tools and templates.
Let’s get started!
Discover Phase
The overall purpose of the discover phase is to get a good understanding of the solution capabilities and to comprehend the business value of the solution for the organization. The focus of the project team is usually on the functional and technical side of the upcoming project.
However, it’s highly recommended to also start the discussion on the people side of the transformation. Especially in companies with no or limited practical experience regarding OCM, there is often a broad range of diverse stakeholder opinions on the responsibility, scope, tasks, and added value of OCM. Thus, the perception of whether OCM is needed in an SAP project and which topics should be addressed often varies substantially across the decision-makers.
These different views can lead to time-consuming decision-making processes, a delayed start of OCM, and to unrealistic or conflicting expectations, making a later setup and execution of OCM unnecessarily difficult.
Thus, creating a shared understanding of OCM among the key project stakeholders is an important task during the discover phase. SAP’s global learning platform offers comprehensive OCM-related learning journeys to support an effective and fast knowledge transfer to the relevant stakeholders of an upcoming SAP project.
Learning Offers on SAP’s Global Learning Platform
In addition to technical, functional, and product-related content, SAP Learning Hub also contains learning journeys regarding the people side of SAP transformations:
- Discover Organizational Change Management for SAP Cloud Projects: This learning journey explains how OCM contributes to the success of an SAP implementation and provides an overview about key OCM activities.
- Getting Started with Learning and Enablement in SAP Projects: This learning journey provides foundational knowledge about all learning and enablement activities within an SAP project and a clear methodology to follow.
Both learning journeys can be completed with a record of achievement. Further learning assets are added to the platform on an ongoing basis.
Another focus for OCM in this phase is to collect information regarding the potential people-related challenges of the SAP implementation. Based on these insights, the scope for OCM is defined and the required resources are identified and assigned. Finally, in this phase, how OCM will be integrated into the project organization can be determined or at least discussed.
Prepare Phase
During the prepare phase, the SAP project is set up, project team members are assigned, and the initial project plan is finalized. Everything is done to ensure a good project start. The same applies for OCM: based on a systematic as-is analysis, the change plan and the communication plan are developed.
Because the prepare phase is rather short, collecting the required information for the OCM setup can be challenging. The project leaders sometimes don’t perceive an added value of the analysis activities and expect OCM to begin with concrete activities right away. However, a thorough change assessment is the foundation for all upcoming OCM steps.
It’s important to understand the special characteristics of the business units impacted by the project, for example, their previous experience with IT-driven transformations, the way change is handled, the key values, and the general dos and don’ts in the cooperation. This knowledge allows for identifying the assets OCM can build upon, avoiding pitfalls, and enabling OCM to design OCM interventions that are compatible with the organization.
Conducting a Change Assessment
Furthermore, the change assessment targets collecting information about the project, such as the generic implications for the impacted units, the expected reactions of the users, and the key challenges OCM should address. Overall, the insights gained during the change assessment are a prerequisite for prioritizing action areas, maximizing the impact of OCM interventions, and making the best use of the available resources.
Like the overall OCM setup, initiating the change communication also starts with investigating the current status. In general, the communication analysis and plan and the execution of communication activities requires a significant time investment not only from the OCM resources but also from the project team.
Crafting Your Communication Plan
Functional experts must provide input for creating compelling communication assets, and the project leaders are especially actively involved in the communication delivery, for example as speaker in all-employee meetings or Q&A sessions. To make the best use of this investment, project-related information must be delivered via appropriate communication channels to the appropriate user groups.
In this context, the communication channel analysis plays an important role. Creating an overview of the existing channels, such as internet pages, newsletters, meetings, or collaboration platforms, and evaluating their advantages and limitations for the change communication, enables the identification of suitable methods and media for conveying project-related information.
Furthermore, additional channels can be implemented, if needed.
Another up-front activity for setting up change communication professionally is the communication needs analysis. By clustering the impacted users in distinct target groups, assessing the existing knowledge about the implementation project, and identifying the respective information needs, communication activities can be tailored to best meet the specific requirements of each group.
Stakeholder Analysis for Communication and Learning
A valuable source of information for the definition of these groups is the stakeholder analysis. Usually conducted both on the individual and group level, the stakeholder analysis provides a systematic overview of the stakeholder landscape for the SAP project. Dividing the impacted users into subgroups with similar characteristics and capturing information such as the number, business unit allocation, and geographic location, is a prerequisite not only for an effective change communication but also for setting up learning and enablement activities.
On an individual level, the stakeholder analysis assesses key individuals regarding their attitude toward the project and their power to influence the project success. Being aware of these aspects is the basis for deriving stakeholder engagement activities and setting up a systematic stakeholder management.
As already mentioned, these analysis activities are not an end in themselves. The communication channel analysis and communication needs analysis are the input for creating the initial version of the communication plan. This plan supports the setup, synchronization, and tracking of all project-related communication measures. It helps to identify required resources, assign clear responsibilities, and foster consistent messaging throughout the project.
Drafting the Change Plan and Change Network Strategy
In a similar way, the change plan documents all intended OCM activities to support the SAP implementation. The initial version developed in the prepare phase is still rather generic. As the project proceeds, the plan will be refined and adjusted on an ongoing basis. In addition, the change plan has to be synchronized with the project plan. Thus, if the project plan is adapted, the change plan must be updated accordingly.
If the organization decides to support the SAP implementation with a change network, the development of a change network strategy is another task during the prepare phase. Working with decentral change agents helps OCM especially in designing change communication activities to meet the requirements of different location, coordinating on-site communication efforts and in establishing feedback channels into the organization. The change network strategy documents the cornerstones, for example, a role description, including tasks and skill requirements, and the nomination procedure.
High-Level Change Impact Analysis
Toward the end of the prepare phase, conducting a high-level change impact analysis may be necessary. Especially for transformations with a medium to high complexity, this analysis helps to obtain insights regarding the level and type of impact of the SAP project on the different business units.
These insights help to create awareness of impending changes, to focus OCM activities and to identify people-related risks, which then can be tackled at an early stage. Once important additional information regarding change impacts is available, the high-level change impact analysis should be updated.
In the following project phases, OCM will be able to build upon the different analysis steps when getting into a more execution mode in the next phases. Nevertheless, despite the undisputable importance and added value of the analyses during the prepare phase, OCM should also invest time in hands-on activities, providing immediate, visible added value for the impacted users.
Delivering Early Wins
An example of such activities is the creation of generic communication assets addressing all impacted users, such as a project presentation, short explanatory videos, FAQ lists, or a project glossary.
Overall, finding a good balance between conceptual work and delivering first visible, hands-on activities right from the start helps to position OCM well within the project team and fosters good, trusting cooperation between change management and project management.
Explore Phase
After the project has been successfully set up, the project team conducts a detailed examination of the company’s current business processes and performs the fit-to-standard analysis. During the fit-to-standard workshops, the implications of the new solutions become clearer. In this context, some resistance is likely to occur, especially in business units that don’t yet perceive an added value of the new way of working.
To create a broad commitment to the project, OCM follows up upon the initial stakeholder engagement activities defined during the prepare phase. This includes implementing these activities, reviewing and updating the stakeholder analysis, and establishing stakeholder management as an ongoing process throughout the project duration.
Especially regarding the management of individual stakeholders, a close collaboration with the project leadership team is required. Winning critical key stakeholders to support the project and thus ensuring a broad leadership commitment is important, as the leaders are important multipliers for the project, conveying messages into the organization and winning employees for the transformation.
Activating the Change Agent Network
Furthermore, implementing the change network is an OCM task during the explore phase. Usually, OCM takes over the preparation and facilitation of the network meetings, starting with a kickoff. Especially in the first meeting, members of the project leadership team also join and provide information on the SAP project.
For successful change network management, it’s important to create an open atmosphere that allows the change agents to raise any issues or concerns that came up in the units they represent. Furthermore, targeted training initiatives, especially regarding soft skills, as well as compelling supporting material (e.g., communication packages) are prerequisites for the change agents to fulfill their tasks.
Executing the Communication Plan
Following the initial planning of the change communication during the prepare phase, the focus of change communication in all subsequent project phases is on the communication plan execution. As the project proceeds and more detailed information is available, the change communication activities in the explore phase start addressing the different stakeholder groups, referring to their respective needs and concerns, and conveying specific information.
The activities strive to further foster awareness for the SAP project, to promote the project’s benefits both for the company and the respective user groups, and to motivate the users to actively support the project. The communication plan is the central steering tool, providing an overview of both already completed and upcoming activities. Therefore, a constant, thorough update of the plan is indispensable.
Measuring Change Effectiveness
As some of the key activities have now been set up, OCM can also start to tackle the first change effectiveness topics. Pulse checks are usually conducted repeatedly as short surveys to collect feedback and to track the development regarding a specific topic, for example, the collaboration within the project team, the overall perception of the SAP project, or the evaluation of OCM interventions.
Depending on the topic, the survey can address the project team or a subset of the project team members, all impacted users, or specific target groups, such as the employees of a business area or the change agents. Deriving implications and providing feedback to the pulse check participants is key for ensuring a high participation rate in follow-up surveys.
The end of the explore phase is usually the earliest point in time to conduct the first business readiness assessment. It targets assessing the overall readiness of the business areas affected by an SAP implementation as the go-live date approaches, striving to ensure a seamless transition to the new system.
Like pulse checks, the business readiness assessment can be carried out repeatedly in different project phases. The focus is on identifying people-related project challenges as soon as possible, allowing enough time for their effective resolution. In subsequent surveys, the business readiness assessment can also evaluate the impact of conducted mitigation activities.
Integrating OCM Activities into the Change Plan
All OCM measures derived from the different activities described previously must be integrated in the change plan. This should be done with appropriate granularity, avoiding unnecessary updating and tracking effort, but allowing for a comprehensive overview of the OCM support at any point in time.
In general, OCM in the explore phase should succeed in transferring the preparatory activities of the previous phase into routines that will be carried out throughout the project, switching from a planning mode to an executing mode.
Realize Phase
After exploring SAP’s best-practice standard and agreeing on the to-be processes and solution, the project team starts configuring the new solution. In addition, the realize phase includes project activities such as data migration, system integration, and extensive testing to ensure the solution meets performance and functionality expectations. As the go-live comes closer, general attention for the project rises. Users are interested in concrete information on how they will be impacted by the new SAP solution.
Therefore, the detailed change impact analysis is a key activity for OCM. The task should be performed at the beginning of the realize phase, when the to-be processes and solution are defined. This allows enough time for preparing the organization well for the go-live. The change impact analysis is best conducted in a series of short workshops, each one focusing on a specific part of the overall implementation scope, for example, a process scope area.
Experts from various business units and diverse backgrounds, such as subject matter experts, process owners, and key users, discuss the upcoming changes. They not only holistically consider technological and processual aspects but also reflect changes regarding roles and responsibilities, organizational setup, and implications for people, for example, new skill requirements or the need to adapt the mindset and culture.
Quantifying and Prioritizing Impace
An additional quantitative rating of the change impacts (e.g., high, medium, and low) facilitates the visualization of the results and enables easy detection of topics requiring high OCM support. Already during the workshops, initial ideas for supporting measures should be collected and documented. Following the assessment, these ideas are then further elaborated on, and responsibilities for the implementation are assigned.
The results of the detailed change impact analysis provide important input for the change communication. OCM must aggregate the gained insights for the different user groups and convey easy-to-understand information on the upcoming changes to make the transformation tangible. This reduces uncertainty and rumors, enhances commitment to the transformation and contributes to motivating the users to prepare well for the upcoming go-live.
Aligning People and Processes
Preparing the business units for the transition also includes the organizational alignment. This step ensures that the organizational setup aligns with the requirements of the new standard processes. The focus of OCM in this context is the facilitation of the role mapping process: using the stakeholder list of affected business users, the new SAP roles are allocated to the employees. Typically, this step takes place in a workshop setting involving the relevant business process owners and the authorization team. Organizational alignment also includes the alignment of organizational policies, procedures, and structures. This requires the active contribution of many different parties, including the project team, leadership team of affected business units, business process owners, and HR department.
OCM should ensure a clear assignment of responsibilities throughout this process to avoid misunderstandings or duplication of effort. Overall, OCM plays a supportive role in this process; it’s not tasked with providing functional advice, elaborating the new organizational structure, or determining the target operating model.
Building a User Adoption Strategy
Another activity of OCM in the realize phase is the development of the user adoption strategy. The user adoption strategy aims to systematically identify and manage factors that influence user adoption in the SAP project. By measuring key adoption and experience metrics, issues and potential risks can be proactively identified at an early stage.
During the realize phase, it’s possible to monitor influencing factors on user adoption; the actual user adoption can only be assessed after go-live. The user adoption strategy defines key performance indicators (KPIs) for both phases and describes the data gathering process. Integrating insights from the detailed change impact analysis provides information for choosing appropriate KPIs and helps prioritize mitigation measures in business areas expected to experience high change impacts.
After the conceptual setup is completed, the KPIs defined before go-live are collected, and mitigation activities derived and implemented.
Deploy Phase
During the deploy phase, the project team conducts preparation activities, such as setting up the system and migrating data from the legacy system to the new solution. After go-live, the project team supports the users in working with the new system, helping them to solve technical issues and answering any system-related questions that might come up. At the end of this intensive hypercare period, the project team hands the system to the IT department that then takes care of ongoing system operations, continuous user support, and enablement.
OCM plays a crucial role in supporting the transition. As the deploy phase is rather short and many different topics must be handled in parallel by the project team, OCM ensures that the people side of the transformation isn’t neglected. Besides the completion of open organizational alignment tasks, OCM is engaged preparing and delivering the go-live communication.
The content includes concrete, user group–specific information on the go-live timeline; system access; contacts for issues and problems; learning and enablement opportunities; and details on additional support offers. This enhances trust among users that the transition is well prepared and reduces concerns and insecurity.
Furthermore, it’s recommended to conduct a business readiness assessment close to go-live. Identifying and addressing existing hurdles for a successful start of the new solution provides valuable input for the project team and helps to target the final preparation activities.
Overall, the deploy phase is characterized by high pressure, challenging timelines, and unexpected issues popping up, sometimes requiring immediate actions. Thus, a close collaboration and ongoing, frequent alignment between project management and change management, high flexibility, and a mutual support during this phase are key.
Run Phase
After the go-live has been completed and the new system is running, the project team hands over to the IT department and the business units. The focus of the run phase is to ensure that the solution is running at peak performance and to take advantage of the regular innovations that SAP releases for the solution. This includes ongoing system operations, continuous business process and system improvements, new scope activation, and onboarding of new users.
OCM can now conduct the user adoption analysis, collecting the agreed-on KPIs for tracking the actual user behavior. This evaluation of users’ interactions with the new system and adherence to new processes helps pinpoint obstacles and issues hindering user acceptance and derives measures to reinforce the use of the new system.
Monitoring and Supporting Long-Term Adoption
As sustainable user adoption is key to realize all benefits of the standards and ongoing updates the SAP solution provides, establishing ongoing monitoring processes for user adoption after project completion is essential. Thus, OCM fosters the implementation of support structures and the delegation of distinct responsibilities within the organization to drive and sustain user adoption.
Conducting Lessons Learned Workshops
Before the project is closed and OCM terminates its support, it’s recommended to derive lessons learned regarding the OCM delivery during the project. This is usually done in a workshop setting. In an open, constructive discussion without blaming or finger-pointing, teams can identify successes, best practices, challenges, and difficulties regarding the OCM project support and then make recommendations for the future handling of derived people-related project matters.
These recommendations enhance both the successful management of upcoming SAP projects and also the competency of the organization to professionally address the people side of business transformations in general.
Key Takeaways for OCM in SAP Activate
To finish, let’s give you some key takeaways for utilizing OCM in SAP Activate.
- Align OCM planning with each SAP Activate phase
- Start communication and stakeholder engagement early
- Revisit change assessments and pulse checks regularly
- Define clear KPIs for user adoption before go-live
- Ensure post-go-live structures are in place to support sustained change
Editor’s note: This post has been adapted from a section of the book SAP Activate: Project Management for SAP S/4HANA Cloud and SAP S/4HANA by Sven Denecken, Jan Musil, and Srivatsan Santhanam. Sven is the senior vice president and chief marketing and solutions officer for Industries & CX, SAP SE. He drives product marketing across SAP’s Industry & CX solutions, enabling customers’ digital transformation. Jan is the SAP Activate chief product owner at SAP. He leads a team of seasoned product managers responsible for SAP Activate, the innovation adoption framework aiding SAP customers and partners in deploying SAP solutions like SAP S/4HANA, SAP SuccessFactors, SAP Ariba, SAP Integrated Business Planning, and SAP Business Technology Platform. Srivatsan has been with SAP Labs, India, since 2004 where he is the head of the SAP Concur engineering product unit. He has two decades of industry experience and is one of the early pioneers and thought leaders in hybrid cloud/two-tier ERP landscapes within the SAP S/4HANA Cloud product space.
This post was originally published 5/2025.
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