Resource planning
Sample, Rick
Rick.Sample at gbe.com
Wed Jan 16 15:00:07 EST 2008
Hey Ramanan,
We have a (1) WF coordinator and (2) developer WF shop since 2002.
(One SAP WF consultant for first six months just to fast track us into
SAP WF)
Boat loads of WFs all over the chart in complexity. Running 4.6c and
ECC6.
We finally got a budget for one more head count. FINALLY!
With that said, if your company has the budget for '12' (as in the
number Twelve!)
"Experienced" SAP Workflow Consultants for a six month gig, e-mail me!!!
LOL
Rick
-----Original Message-----
From: sap-wug-bounces at mit.edu [mailto:sap-wug-bounces at mit.edu] On Behalf
Of Sheldon Oxenberg
Sent: Wednesday, January 16, 2008 12:51 PM
To: SAP Workflow Users' Group
Subject: RE: Resource planning
Hi Ramanan,
I fully agree with the other replies regarding it's a major development,
need more information for a better estimate, need an experienced
consultant
to help plan, in addition to needing a good set of standards,a workflow
development management strategy, etc.
But for a way out there wild guess (which I do not endorse nor stand
behind
nor can I justify), averaging across a variety of skill levels,
requirement
difficulties, technical difficulties, project difficulties,
documentation
needs, etc. and given short time line of 6 months for this major
development, how about this?
10 complex workflows x average 2.5 months = 25 months
30 medium workflows x average 1 month = 30 months
60 simple workflows x average 1.5 weeks = 20 months
Therefore, having a time line of 6 months, here is my flip a coin guess:
12 personnel for development over six month period
8 personnel for maintain and administer - for support after go
live
Be Smart,
Sheldon C. Oxenberg
Computer Sciences Corporation
Registered Office: 2100 East Grand Avenue, El Segundo California 90245,
USA
Registered in USA No: C-489-59
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Srinivasan
Ramanan
<r_m_n_n at hotmail.
To
com> "SAP Workflow Users' Group"
Sent by: <sap-wug at mit.edu>
sap-wug-bounces at m
cc
it.edu
Subject
RE: Resource planning
01/16/2008 08:42
AM
Please respond to
"SAP Workflow
Users' Group"
<sap-wug at mit.edu>
Dear Mike,
I do understand all the points in your e-mail. I completely agree that
more
effort put on planning makes the steps easy in realization.
The situation is I have is:
We expect that there will be 100 workflows in the
ECC6.0
We do also have some workflows running at differect
geographical locations. The count is 50.
We just doubled it up that when all locations get into
ECC6.0 , we predicted that count to go to 100.
We have 4 personnels who already developed and are
administering the current 50.
But please bear in mind that some WFs may not be upto
best
practice, thats why needed some resources to bring these current to a
best
practice levels and also contribute for newer ones.
Having said all that, whats on the planning side. No Functional
specifications exist for the TO BE workflows, which I have numbered as
100.
We expect them to be completed by Feb 2008 end.
March is the kickoff for realization. Actual work begins in April.
Now all the requird resource allocation is started, but in progress. I
am
in the process of estimating the needs for WF and I know I have 4
personnels. It always take some time to complete the re-trainng in-house
personnels or recruit new developers.
So I have started my resource planning I think very well ahead ( as you
said no numbers will be whispered until a meaningful estimate is in hand
),
and I hope to come up with a better resolution by end of Feb 2008.
What I really meant by empirical is a kind of stastical. I know that
statistical also sometimes not considered scientific. You can not start
planning at meticulous level like ( 175 mins for a development of WF
task
with ABAP coding of 1500 lines ). We will end up with very good
perfectly
executable plan, but would have missed the bus ( ie. deadlines ). So I
have
no option but to trade of some accuracy in my estimate to be in the
game.
with sincere regards
Ramanan
From: asap at workflowconnections.com
To: sap-wug at mit.edu
Subject: RE: Resource planning
Date: Wed, 16 Jan 2008 11:28:09 +0000
<sigh> I just told you I wouldn't so much as whisper an estimate
without about a month's research.
Not even a day later you have a proposal. A proposal that ignores
the
majority of what I said before.
I take back my statement about suggesting you get an Experienced
consultant in.
Instead, I STRONGLY RECOMMEND you get an EXPERIENCED consultant to
help you out.
Planning is not a game. It has a far bigger influence on cost and
success than the build itself (which should take up less than half
the time). SAP only charge a couple of thousand dollars per day. I
say "only" because they'll save you tens of thousands (If you
listen
to them of course). How so? By not having to scrap or redo parts
of a
badly planned project, never mind the damage to your reputation.
How do I know it's already badly planned? See first two sentences
of
this email.
Please understand that I'm not having a go at you, but your two
posts
make it clear that you need a reality check. Not giving you an
answer
is the most helpful we can be. Anyone that gives you estimates on
this list will do more harm than good because they will probably
be
wrong (Ask on SDN and you will get plenty of those).
Even though the WUG ranks just behind Wikipedia in knowledge
content,
there are just too many factors to do this with the help of a
mailing
list. Feel free to ask about specifics as you work your way
through
requirements gathering.
Good luck,
Mike
PS: Your use of the word 'empirical' is the exact opposite of its
meaning. Your values are certainly not based on facts and
observation.
From: sap-wug-bounces at mit.edu [mailto:sap-wug-bounces at mit.edu] On
Behalf Of Srinivasan Ramanan
Sent: 15 January 2008 15:01
To: SAP Workflow Users' Group
Subject: RE: Resource planning
Thanks Mike,
I appreciate your inputs. Its really difficult to answer this
question.
What I did is: ( Since I am in the position to answer this to my
company as an employee of the company )
I assumed these followings:
10 complex workflows ( having more than 20 tasks )
30 medium ( 10 to 20 tasks )
60 simple ( less than 10 tasks )
It is decided to implement HR just for Organizational units
purposes.
It helps both roles and authorization management. Hence agent
assignments could be not that complex.
Having a time line of 6 months only for these work, I am
proposing:
6 Personnels for development over six months
period
4 to 6 Personnels for maintain and administer -
for
support after go live
Has anyone else could share some ideas if you have executed
projects
even not to this magnitude, but with some 10 - 20 workflows
development. I need some info on how many personnels, how many
workflows and how many months. It will be kind of easy to
extrapolate. I do understand that it will only be an empirical
value
for resource planning. But we can start with min. resource and
continue to agument as and when the workflows start development
phase.
regards
Ramanan
From: asap at workflowconnections.com
To: sap-wug at mit.edu
Subject: RE: Resource planning
Date: Mon, 14 Jan 2008 23:08:07 +0000
Hello Ramanan,
That's a pretty major project, and there is a good reason all
projects go through a planning phase. Faced with the same question
I
would estimate at least a month's work to come up with an answer
that's anywhere near realistic.
For starters there are many factors beyond workflow that will
influence your requirements, such as size and makeup of the
overall
project team, length of project, willingness to invest in the
right
skills. Are you going to employ 4+ years' experienced consultants,
or
find ABAPers who have built the occasional WF, or train up inhouse
staff?
Next you have the workflows themselves. I've built approval
workflows
taking from two days to over a year. Even specific workflow
scenarios
are no measure: an invoice approval can take 10 days at one client
and 5 months at another (also based on personal experience).
You ask how many administrators? What sort of total volumes do you
expect? (You obviously need to volume estimates of each of the
workflows..). Do you use HR? More experienced resources building
the
WFs will pay off in reduced maintenance. The workflow I mentioned
above created jobs for two administrators - just looking after the
one WF.
Based on the info in your question, I would seriously suggest you
engage an Experienced (with a capital 'E') consultant for at least
a
few days to get you started on answering it.
If you insist on a guess: 50% chance you need between 5 and 10
people, 50% chance you need more or less than that. Flip a coin to
see which one.
Cheers,
Mike
From: sap-wug-bounces at mit.edu [mailto:sap-wug-bounces at mit.edu] On
Behalf Of Srinivasan Ramanan
Sent: 14 January 2008 21:58
To: sap-wug at mit.edu
Subject: Resource planning
Dear WUG,
There are 100 workflows expected to be up and running in ECC6.0
Please consider that it is not know exactly what are the workflows
now.
But please consider that workflows will be used for create and
maintain of all major master data objects and pretty much for
regular
task distributions like PO release, invoice processing etc.,
My questions are:
How many personnels are required at the Development phase for
these
100 workflows?
How may personnels are required for 'maintain' and 'administer'
the
workflows?
Anyone who worked at this level, please I value your inputs very
much.
Please respond with your experiences and emprical calculations.
thanks in advance.
Ramanan
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