About this Checklist
The purpose of this checklist is to ensure that the project operates under clear, consistent, and controlled governance processes, aligned with both SAP Activate methodology and organizational standards. Project governance defines how decisions are made, communicated, and enforced throughout the SAP program. It establishes the rules of engagement for all participants — from the Steering Committee to delivery teams — ensuring accountability, transparency, and compliance with the agreed methodology (e.g., SAP Activate).
Below is a full explanation of each checklist point — including what it means and why it matters.
Q1: Have the project controlling processes been defined in the Project Governance Strategy?
This checks whether the project has documented control mechanisms — including risk management, change control, issue tracking, scope management, and decision logging — within a Project Governance Strategy document.
Why it matters:
Without well-defined controlling processes, projects operate reactively instead of proactively. Clear control processes allow early detection of deviations in scope, cost, schedule, or quality, helping to prevent costly overruns and ensuring governance discipline.
Q2: Has the Project Governance Strategy document been updated, communicated with the Steering Committee and Project Team, and agreed to the contract where external resources are involved?
This ensures that the latest governance model — covering decision-making levels, escalation paths, and reporting cadence — has been shared, approved, and embedded in contractual arrangements (especially with System Integrators and external services vendors).
Why it matters:
Governance that is not communicated and contractually aligned is ineffective. Everyone involved must operate under the same rules, ensuring transparency and avoiding disputes about roles, deliverables, and escalation rights.
Q3: Review evidence that internal project communication is taking place
This includes project initiation/phase workshops (kick-off), project status reporting processes, Steering Committee and Project Team meetings as per the Project Governance Strategy. It verifies that the communication plan is operational, not just documented. It checks that meetings, reports, and workshops are happening regularly and in line with the defined cadence.
Why it matters:
Governance fails without consistent communication. Regular updates maintain alignment, trust, and visibility across teams and management layers, enabling informed decisions and quick corrective actions.
Q4: Assess SAP Activate adherence and following. What processes have been put in place to ensure the Project Team understand and use SAP Activate?
Checks whether the project is formally applying SAP Activate — including its phases, workstreams, deliverables, and governance checkpoints — and whether the team has been trained or oriented to this methodology.
Why it matters:
SAP Activate provides the standard delivery framework and roadmaps for SAP implementations. If not followed, teams tend to revert to ad-hoc delivery methods, local to-do task lists, leading to missed deliverables, scope confusion, and inconsistent quality. Adherence ensures predictable outcomes and alignment with SAP’s best practices.
Q5: Has a standard project repository folder structure (eg. in Confluence) been implemented and communicated to the Project Team?
Ensures that a consistent information architecture exists — typically a shared digital documentation repository stored in Confluence or SharePoint, with a defined folder structure for all project documentation.
Why it matters:
Disorganized documentation leads to loss of knowledge, audit gaps, and inconsistent version control. A standard structure enforces traceability, simplifies onboarding, and supports governance reviews and audits.
Q6: Have key lessons learned from other similar projects been identified and understood?
Checks whether the project team has conducted a pre-project review or knowledge transfer to capture lessons learned from previous SAP or IT transformation initiatives.
Why it matters:
Projects that ignore prior lessons repeat the same mistakes. Integrating historical insights helps to anticipate risks, design better controls, and accelerate learning curves for new teams.
Q7: Have you evaluated the needed integration management processes and deliverables?
Evaluates whether the project has defined integration governance — including cross-workstream dependency management, interface design coordination, and technical integration checkpoints.
Why it matters:
In SAP programs, integration is the most frequent source of delay and defect. Without formal integration management, teams optimize within silos and fail to deliver end-to-end business processes that actually work together.
Q8: Have you ensured roles and responsibilities for integration management are clear and understood?
Checks that there are named integration leads or architects responsible for cross-system coordination (SAP–non-SAP, functional–technical), and that their authority and scope are documented.
Why it matters:
Integration issues often arise when ownership is unclear. Clear responsibilities ensure single-point accountability, faster issue resolution, and effective dependency tracking between workstreams.
