Workflow Team Organization

[Dart, Jocelyn]

Hi Donna,
There's also a short discussion on different team strucutres
at the end of the workflow administration chapter in the book.
Regards,
        Jocelyn Dart
Consultant (SRM, EBP, Workflow)
and co-author of the book
"Practical Workflow for SAP"
SAP Australia
email: jocelyn.dart at sap.com
phone: +61 412 390 267
fax:   +61 2 9935 4880
 
 
 
 
-----Original Message-----
From: Susan Keohan [mailto:skeohan at mit.edu]
Sent: Thursday, 7 November 2002 6:17 AM
To: SAP-WUG at MITVMA.MIT.EDU
Subject: Re: Workflow Team Organization
 
 
Hi Donna,
 
I had hoped that someone more knowledgable than I would respond to your
question, so I waited.  But, for what it's worth, here is what I know
about Workflow Team Organizations...
 
I think that the core members of your team would be 1 or 2 workflow
developers (depending on the size of your workflow implementation, maybe
even more).  These people would have a strong background in ABAP.  They
should also have a close working relationship with the functional teams,
as these teams will be providing the specifications for the workflows.
 Ideally, you would not have multiple developers working in the same
business objects/ processes - this can lead to a lot of conflicts.  On
my current project, we have 3 workflowers, we live in close proximity to
the functional teams, but in a different building from the ABAP team.
One of us is handling the EBP and procurement workflows, one is handling
the HR workflows, and one is handling the FI/MM workflows.
 
Secondly, workflow administration (inbox, org structure changes, etc).
 During the development phase, 1 or 2 workflow administrators need to be
identified and brought in to learn about the workflows (if they are not
also the workflow developers).  A workflow administrator  needs to have
at least some of the following skills: Business Process knowledge,
understanding of the workflows, information on how to correct/process
errors, SAPNet access, authorizations and skills to run various workflow
reports.  The role of the workflow administrator(s) can fall into the
process organization or the technical organization; I don't think there
is any 'right' way to define where the workflow administrators sit
(except that it should be a nice big cushy office with a view).
 
I know there have been some good presentations at ASUG in the recent
past (Kenny Quenzer and Kevin Jackson, ASUG 2001).  If you are an ASUG
member, you might be able to look at their presentation from the ASUG
web site.
 
Hope this is better late than never,
Sue
Lovdahl, Donna L. wrote:
 
>Hi All,
>
>Currently, I am the only workflow expert at our company and want to change
>that. Right now, we only use it in relation to processing IDOCs. We are now
>in the process of expanding that to include such things as material master
>setup, A/P invoice processing, etc. My question relates to how different
>organizations has handled setting up a 'workflow team'. Do you have one or
>two experts to build and support the technical environment? Are they on a
>technical team, such as ABAP? Are they part of the R/3 configuration team
>for SD, MM, FI, etc? Do you have a separate team that handles the day to day
>issues around how to process the items in the inbox, org structure changes,
>etc? What have you found that works best in terms of an organizational
>design and responsibilities for supporting workflow.
>
>Thanks for any advice you can give me.
>
>Donna Lovdahl
>
>
>