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S4H - 747 How To Approach Cutover
S4H - 747 How To Approach Cutover
PUBLIC
Purpose of This Playbook
SAP Activate Methodology Accelerator
Please Note: It is intended to be used by SAP delivery leaders on all SAP projects in conjunction with normal processes and
guidelines such as SAP Activate methodology and existing SAP project delivery toolsets
2. Playbook
Remote Cutover Planning
Remote Dress Rehearsal
Remote Final Cutover Execution
Post-cutover Activities
3. Feedback
Collaborative Spirit
Discovery Setup and Fit-to-Standard Scope and Migrate, Integrate, Onboard and Innovate,
Extend
Assessment Enablement Analysis Configure Test Deploy Operate, Support
Post-cutover
Plan and Prepare for Remote Remote Dress Remote Production
Go/No-go Decision Activities &
Cutover Rehearsal(s) Cutover & Go-Live
Business Adoption
• Assess readiness for remote • Fine tune remote cutover plan • Assess risk for productive • Execute remote cutover to • Ensure support for business
cutover based on real cutover activities cutover production environment users (off-site and on-site)
• Prepare remote cutover plan and (including non-SAP vendors) • Cutover project manager to • Stay current with cutover • Monitor and resolve issues
make it accessible to all parties • Identify and resolve issues make a go/no-go progress • Monitor and report adoption
involved in cutover before final cutover recommendation • Set status to done after metrics
• Prepare resources plan, ensure • Ensure dependencies are • Productive Cutover decision completion of your action
resources availability and
• Key users and customer
understood and hand overs (go/no-go) • Trigger next action via agreed operations team running the
backups. Identify who will be on- are well managed
site and who will be off-site. process system
• Allow sufficient time for • Business validation per activity • Celebrate Success!
• Identify risks and define
complete dress rehearsal to confirm green status
management plans
• Align team around common
• Document resolution of all • Start business operations in
vision, plan, timeline issues for cutover the new system
• Establish efficient cutover team
communications (changes,
hand-offs, progress, …)
• Coordinate with OCM team for
Change Readiness assessment
activities
INTERNAL – SAP and Partners Only 5
Key Implementation Roles
Key Roles and Responsibilities
Responsible for SAP Application SMEs, key Manages the change In many customer Consultants, Project sponsor and
planning, coordination users, select business users and readiness checks and projects, SAP system technical experts key business decision
and execution of IT personnel (technology, system executes planned OCM is integrated with from system makers that can be called
cutover activities. In support, etc.) executing activities and other non-SAP integrator (SAP or upon to support execution
many cases cutover and supporting the execution communications and systems. SAP partner) are in of cutover project. This
PM role is staffed by of cutover activities including monitors end-user Participation of charge of delivering group will make a
customer and SI data loads, system checks, adoption. representatives from customer cutover final decision for business
forming a power business transaction processing vendors of such project. SI team go-live at the conclusion of
Typically staffed by
couple. and data validation. systems is critical usually also have a cutover (and start of hyper-
Customer team
Some customer cutover team for cutover success in sponsor that care). This group serves as
members.
members may be required on- case interface or participates in daily the escalation body for fast
site during the entire or parts integration calls and drives resolution of issues
of cutover execution. Typically, issues need to be resolution of issues
roles that cannot be performed resolved. that are escalated.
remotely could include
warehouse clerks, manufacturing
supervisors, etc.
INTERNAL – SAP and Partners Only 6
Reliable Tools Supporting Remote Cutover
Project teams planning remote cutover should decide on specific collaboration tools the team will use
to communicate and share information. In general following categories of tools should be considered:
Video Conferencing & Chat
Team Collaboration & Whiteboards
Document Storage / Team Collaboration
ALM (Application Lifecycle Management) Tools
Team Enablement / Training
Pulse Check Tools (like Qualtrics or polling/survey tools)
Project leads need to assess the suitability of any particular tool depending on each project and
customer situation in conjunction with appropriate technical experts and the customer IT organization.
NOTES:
• Tools suggested by customers need to be checked for potential data protection & security issues
• Tools agreed to must be trialed on all user computers (Customer, SAP, and Partners) for compatibility before the final
decision
Microsoft Teams (Cloud Storage) SAP Activate Cutover Template MURAL (Collaboration Tool)
• Video Conferencing • Execute tasks per the cutover • Virtual White board
• Document storage and collaboration plan • Collaboration real-time
• Discussions and chats around topics • Template • Templates for various working
sessions
In order to ensure all participants are ready for the Remote Cutover Activities ensure the following :
The project teams planning the cutover activities must ensure they complete
all previous deliverables and tasks before they proceed with cutover:
• Major part of cutover is data migration and data loads; all data migration
code and testing must be completed and ready for production use before
cutover start.
• All functional testing, integration testing and user acceptance testing must
be finished and all go-live critical issues must be addressed before cutover
start.
• There must be no further configuration, extensibility or integration activities
in process. All building, testing, extensibility and integration work must be
completed before cutover start.
The cutover preparation activities do not belong just to the project team. Business preparation
activities are usually required to support a project cutover.
Business preparation and cutover tasks may require onsite engagement even with a remote
delivery and cutover model.
• Communication to and engagement with external business partners for preparation and actual
cutover tasks
• Activities to reduce the risk of adverse impact to key business operations during and post cutover
• Business verification testing during cutover; including physical devices such as printers, RF
scanners etc.
Assess the current level of experience and exposure to Consider the culture of the project and
remote working across the organization and project team organization in supporting a remote cutover
Assess the experience of the customer working with Consider the decision making processes;
external parties whilst leveraging remote delivery tools and including hierarchy, speed, review cycles etc.
practices Consider the project’s and organization’s
agility and ability to adapt to new “norms”
Assess the current level of expertise in using IT including past performances
collaboration tools
Leverage all cutover planning and execution templates from the SAP Activate methodology The production cutover schedule
Roadmap Viewer. must contain time slack for the
resolution of issues that the dress
Your cutover plan needs to be detailing out specific activities and actions, the rehearsal did not report.
responsible person for executing the task and supporting personnel. All identified risks must have an
action plan (mitigation steps,
In large projects, structure cutover plan by area, but ensure integrated nature is not lost – acceptance or avoidance of cutover
cross-area dependencies need to be understood by the cutover team. However, you should risk
maintain ONE master cutover plan. During dress rehearsal fine tune the
cutover schedule, including sequence /
Cutover plan and timing MUST be reviewed with all cutover team members, key dependencies and timing of specific
stakeholders, and adjusted with their feedback. Mainly focus on the sequence, dependencies, actions.
and risks. It must contain cutover business validation tasks (e.g., data migration, manual
master data setup) and go/no-go criteria for business go-live.
Run at least one dry run simulation of the cutover schedule with the whole cutover team
present. During this walkthrough the team will go over the activities and task line-by-line to
understand the flow and exchange points. This dry run serves as the final cutover plan review
before cutover dress rehearsal
Organizational Readiness
Processes and Governance
People
Consider the Project and Organization structure, All cutover team members should have appropriate
processes and governance to effectively manage a remote
access to the production system (in line with customer
cutover
security and access policies).
Involve customer, SAP and other vendor sponsors in the
cutover process, with clear and defined communications and Consider cutover support personnel location, time-zone
escalation paths . and any service level agreements
Assess any changes and impacts to the organization and Cutover team must be composed of customer personnel,
external partners; i.e. health and safety, workplace SI personnel and 3rd party personnel for any integrated
regulations systems (e.g. tax reporting solution, scanning or printing
SW/HW, etc.).
Consult with key stakeholders (internal and external) for
remote cutover; i.e. HR, IT, labor unions etc. Ensure that all cutover team members will be available
Ensure you are in compliance with current country / state / during the dress rehearsal(s) and production cutover time
region regulations (e.g. compliance with what is considered (these activities are typically done during weekends).
essential employee allowed to work on-site).
Indicate which personnel will be working off-site and
Consider cutover issue and defect management processes who will be on-site (note that some jobs like shipping,
and systems; including accessibility regardless of location printing delivery slips to include in the shipment will have
to be done on-site).
INTERNAL – SAP and Partners Only 14
Remote Cutover Readiness Assessment
IT / Technology Assessment
Assess current IT infrastructure to Assess current IT enablers and tools Assess impact on IT / Technology
support remote cutover to support remote cutover partners to support remote cutover
model; including resourcing, IT
Assess ability to scale IT Identify changes and additions to the infrastructure, IT enablers and tools
infrastructure IT enablers and tools to support remote
cutover Assess changes to agreements and
Assess the team’s IT capabilities for proposals with IT / Technology partners
remote work including; laptops, internet Consider installation effort and
access and bandwidth timeline for any changes and additions
to IT enablers and tools
Assess any information and IT
security risks and challenges Identify user requirements for the IT
enablers and tools; including training,
Identify potential impacts and user access etc.
constraints for data privacy
understanding what specific items apply video conferencing is integral for off-
site delivery for emulating team’s co-
location; such as daily “Stand-Ups” etc.
It is suggested to review the following tools and determine with the cutover team which tool will be used for which of
the following scenarios :
SAP Best Practices Explorer: for SAP Best Practices Tool to capture the following (one tool or multiple can be
documentation (test scripts, process diagrams, et.) Link used to fulfill):
Roadmap Viewer: for implementation roadmap and Key Decisions
implementation accelerators like cutover plan template. Link
Action Items (ex. Word or Excel)
Collaboration Tools: Screen sharing + video
Notes/Meeting Minutes
conferencing tool (ex. Teams, Google Meet, Skype for
Business, Slack, etc.) Cloud storage tool: for sharing documents
Communication Tools: for wide-spread messaging to Pulse Check tool: for checking in with participants during the
the cutover team, to the project team and to the project delivery (ex Qualtrics, Mentimeter, etc.)
executive team (ex. MS Teams, E-mail distribution list,
SMS text messaging system (depending on country
providers), etc.)
Prior to the Remote Production Cutover, do a pulse check with all of the cutover team members to ensure the following:
Availability for entire duration of the cutover process (”soft” go-live, production
cutover, post-cutover).
Access to contact numbers for all team members for the cutover weekend
Technology and network bandwidth check for access to the cutover tools and
video conference.
For on-site cutover team members (for example warehouse staff, core IT staff,
etc.), ensure compliance with safety and security requirements + make sure they
have access to the facility during the cutover duration.
Daily "open cutover video call" with cutover team members is an effective approach to emulate
co-location of an offsite team with individual "breakout" sessions for specific discussions topics
points and issue resolution. The cutover PM oversees running this activity.
Run daily beginning-of-day and end-of-day meetings to review progress and communicate issues.
All cutover team members must attend.
Cutover team consists of customer, system integrators (SI) and other vendors, all are available
during the cutover execution either full time or on-call as needed.
Cutover task coordination and reporting is even more important with remote teams. It is a good
practice to setup central tracking of the cutover plan execution and issues resolution (chat
channel, video conference).
Central storage and ease of visibility of the cutover plan are essential factors for maintaining tight
hand offs between offsite team members; leveraging collaboration tools in conjunction with email.
Collaborative atmosphere and swarming around issues to address them are key tactics to support
offsite team's effectiveness.
Cutover team members must be adequately trained and skilled on the cutover processes and
tools including team collaboration prior to the commencement of cutover.
Some SAP customers run a “soft” go-live with pre-defined set of business processes, products in a part of
their business to check that the system works properly before full business go-live.
“Soft” go-live adds more safety to the cutover process and allows the business to test various critical
processes on sub-set of data. For example shipping specific products from warehouse to fulfill direct
customer order: receiving an order via on-line store, credit card processing, picking the order, packaging,
printing shipping label, accounting.
“Soft” go-live should be decided early in the project and documented in the Cutover Strategy document.
You should especially consider the impact of parallel systems running (if required - legacy and SAP) in
cases when new SAP system replaces existing legacy application. Make sure you consider the impact of
parallel operations on business data integrity and data migration strategy.
Ensure the combination of positive and negative tests are executed to check for exceptional conditions
during the “soft” go-live.
Resolve issues as they are identified, coordinate through the central cutover coordination video call
outlined in the previous slide.
Plan sufficient time for “soft” go-live to test broad range of processes and situations. You will encounter
issues; allow time for solving them.
At the end of the “soft” go-live the cutover project manager will make go/no-go recommendations to
customer and SAP sponsors.
If it is decided to go-live, cutover team will bring business users into the system following this decision.
Typically the next business day after the weekend “soft” go-live.
INTERNAL – SAP and Partners Only 21
Remote Cutover Timeline
Example of cutover weekend timeline
Cutover project team including customer Cutover project team including customer
Cutover project team including customer key users
key users
key users
Open video conference room during the day Open video conference room during the day
Open video conference room during the day
monitored by cutover PM for coordination and monitored by cutover PM for coordination and
monitored by cutover PM for coordination and
issues resolution; access to centrally stored issues resolution; access to centrally stored
issues resolution; access to centrally stored
cutover plan cutover plan
cutover plan
Cutover
Plan*
Other data objects
Order-to-Cash Data Migration FI/CO or work streams
SI Project team + SI Project team + SI Project team + SI Project team + SI Project team +
customer key users customer key users customer key users customer key users customer key users
Open conference Open conference Open conference Open conference Open conference
room during the day room during the day room during the day room during the day room during the day
Formally recognize the success Bring the team together one last time
Formally announce success to all stakeholders after the Schedule an open call with all cutover participants
hyper-care period (customer, system integrator, other suppliers)
Remember to include cutover and success metrics (such Ask participants to bring their own drink and snack to the
as....migration statistics, timelines, business metrics after celebration
go-live), team member names and recognition of
everybody’s contribution If you have participants on-site ensure you comply with
safety regulations
Consider sending cutover team members an award or
token of appreciation Formally thank the cutover team for their hard work
• Some organizations have systems in place to recognize
contributions; if one is not available, coordinate with the Share key cutover metrics and success metrics
Project Manager and Sponsor on alternative plan
Let the team openly share their cutover stories and
Consider running a survey with cutover team to collect experiences
suggestions for future cutover process improvements
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