Professional Documents
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Adventures of
Super User
Exploring the Idea of the SAP “Super User” in
Documentation, Training, and Support in SAP
Authored by Cristin Merritt of Insite Objects
Summary
With the pressure on companies to shine, investment in systems
like SAP has bred a powerful individual, the SAP Super User.
Gifted with the talents of knowing their portion of the system well,
they often are asked to go beyond the role of their day-to-day job
to provide or assist in the provision of documentation, training, and
support – engaging users and providing a personal touch to bring
harmony between the people and the SAP system. This paper
explores the SAP Super User model, implementation of this model,
sustainment of the model, and improvements that could bring the
education world and the Super Users a much-needed boost.
Utilizing interviews with ExxonMobil and Applied Materials, along
with the results of a 10-question survey answered by 100 SAP
users, the goal of this paper is to offer both advice on how to use
this model and areas of improvement to the model.
The Adventures of Super User
Table of contents
Section 1: The Model ..........................................................................................1
Conclusion ........................................................................................................14
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The Adventures of Super User
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The Adventures of Super User
Model Considerations
In order to adopt the Super User model, the following must be considered:
1. How the Super Users will be found.
2. How much time the Super User will spend in this role.
3. What this role will encompass.
4. How many users the Super User will ‘coach.’
The considerations of the project itself will further refine the model. In the two case studies
conducted by Insite in support of our surveys, we found two companies at opposite ends of SAP
experience, but sharing the same common goals. Each speaks to the pros and cons of having
the Super User model as their primary education model.
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money, and resources. The unification of how a company is educated globally has a much
better chance of succeeding if put in place at the start.
! Employee and Ratio Scoping:
As they are new to SAP, they will have to spend more time creating a better scope for the
type of Super User they wish to promote. Estimated ratios of time spent in the role, and the
role definition itself will go through several changes as they mature with the system.
The balance that must be drawn between older, established clientele and newer/expansion
clientele is creating a general model which can be applied to any size of project, at any stage of
SAP use, and be able to be implemented, controlled, and sustained as a company grows.
Much of finding a Super User involves knowing who to talk to and what to ask for. ExxonMobil
and Applied Materials both have refined lists of criteria and specific questions that they take to
managers or functional teams. In short, they manually seek out the Super User who fits a profile.
The survey respondents pointed to ‘knowing who to use’ and ‘finding the ones who care’ as part
of the overall profile of a Super User. Companies lucky enough to be small instances of SAP may
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have no problem in finding users via profiling and lists, but as the project grows so does the
difficulty of finding the right users.
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The Adventures of Super User
Not identified by the survey, but mentioned in interviews were time and user management ratios.
Here the answers varied, and also entered the political ramifications that occur when developing
a Super User base. After all, once these talented users are indentified, how can you ensure that
they will remain balanced between their actual job and the new role they are assigned? And how
can this be done without burning out the Super User or causing issues with their direct superiors,
because they are no longer performing their ‘real’ job 100% of their time? How does a company
justify their cost?
Applied Materials has put together a sliding time-scale of how much time a Super User should
devote to a project. This is comparable to ExxonMobil’s logic. In it, they perceive that a Super
User should be found and put in place during the Testing Phase, and should expend the bulk of
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their effort in this role during Go Live. These are the most precarious parts of any SAP project, in
which special care should be made as users adapt to the system. This, however, is a tough sell
to managers, as asking them to ‘borrow’ their prized employee for up to 50% of their work week
can become problematic.
It should be noted that ideally, in a stable system, a Super User should only spend 10% of their
time in this role.
Ratios
How many users should a Super User ‘coach’? Again, while not part of the survey, both
interviews addressed this question. This is often assessed on a project-by-project basis, and can
include many variables. From our interviews we were able put together the following
considerations:
1. How stable is your SAP system?
o If very complex or small the ratio is approximately 1 Super User: 10 Users.
o A large project with moderate management yields 1 Super User: 40 Users.
o A 1 Super User: 100 User ratio is likely for long-running, consistently stable systems.
2. How many End Users are in your SAP system?
a. The smaller the system, more likely to consistently maintain a 1 Super User: 10 User
ratio regardless of project.
b. Moderate system (under 10,000 users) maintain at 1 Super User: 40 Users or 1 Super
Users: 100 Users.
c. Large, global systems (over 10,000 users) receive the most inconsistent numbers, and so
no final ratio can be averaged.
3. What kind of support are you providing to the Super User? (The more help available, the
better the chance for a stable use of the system.)
a. Online access for support – variations in customized support, standard support, and it’s
level of integration with users and Super Users.
b. Help Desk size and availability.
c. External support – Functional Team, Training Team, Competency Center availability.
Putting it altogether
Once a company finds, establishes the functions of, and determines the work ratios of the Super
Users, the Super Users are ready for action. But how does this model work in the real world?
Our survey results, along with our interviews, provide the following points for proper
implementation of the model:
Applied Materials has a tiered approach to finding the Super Users. Super Users are divided
into those who can teach, and those who support training. Cultivated Super Users who are
selected to take up training positions adopt a different set of functions to those cultivated to
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function as onsite support. These latter individuals may instead be recruited to assist in
documentation and one-on-one training.
Fears
The vast majority of the budget for an SAP implementation is spent prior to Go Live. This is the
time during which there are countless internal and external resources working day and night to
meet deadlines. Once that has passed, there is a period of system stability, but many of the
problems that occur don’t always happen in the six weeks after a launch. Down the road minor
problems can crop up here or there, which then add up, increasing stress levels on the ground
that may or may not reach the management level. Communication is a strong factor here, but
may not always be readily available.
When conducting our interviews, we found two main fears. (1) Despite all the preparation work
involved in finding and training up the Super User, there is a sense that the project team is
dumping information and running to the next project, not giving the Super User the sustained
support they need. (2) Concerns that the company will run out of the resources required to keep
everyone in good shape as the project expands, which could result in budget overruns and
personnel stress.
There are ways to ensure this does not occur, however, as the suggestions of ExxonMobil, the
plans of Applied Materials, and the experience of Insite can attest.
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from more knowledge about the power of automated tools, and second, Insite wanted unbiased
results related to the tool we provide for SAP, which is the RESITE Performance Suite. (Of the
respondents, 68% are not clients of Insite.)
Corporations frequently struggle to properly allocate resources, time, and money to projects.
Because of this, certain levels of project sustainment, the primary example being documentation,
are often abandoned as an unnecessary or unjustifiable expense. Both ExxonMobil, who has
suffered from this in the past, and Applied Materials, who are hoping to stand firm on utilizing their
capture tool, believe strongly that utilization of the Super User model will help address this.
The approach to identifying and purchasing an automated tool is often project-by-project in pre-
existing SAP clients because of a lack of unification in documentation, or sadly, not even knowing
where the documentation is. Added to this the IT problem, of how to integrate another tool into
the existing system landscape. Fortunately, most automated documentation tools can plug
directly into SAP and provide both training and support, provided the IT group allows for this
installation. Rules on how far this integration can be made may vary by company or even division
within a company, but not providing this ability can prove detrimental to both the user and Super
User.
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already available within the company that are flexible to their needs. In the case of pre-existing
tools, or the ability to purchase tools, there can be two paths:
! Adding on to the system in place, or installing a new system. This involves (re)configuring
the system to provide space for the new project, loading core documents for the project, and
adding authoring rights to selected team members.
! Looking for a hosted or SaaS system to manage their documentation, while gaining authoring
rights to the tool.
The add-on to an existing system or the installation of a new system is better for large scale and
global projects when looking at the need for strict automated communication between multiple
sites, or the maintenance of a competency or training center. If this becomes too difficult to
manage, hosted systems will allow for a project-by-project approach, with each project able to
manage their own material. This gives the ability to budget per-project, and also saves time over
attempting to approve a company-wide installation. The hosted solution may also remove the IT
burden of an in-house documentation management system.
In small projects, or those not needing tight control or approvals over documentation, a wiki
system may work. Under such a system, all user documentation is placed in a location (typically
a Web server) from where all users can display it, and selected users (most likely including the
Super Users) can update it. The only concern will be in regards to control of the documents, as
changes made to documents in the wiki are often made immediately available, without a formal
pre-emptive review. However, when the company is ready to move to a full management system
there will exist a set of documents in place to work from, provided communication between
projects remains active.
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! How will the data be quantified? Will results be published and made public?, or is this data
used internally?
Problems can persist even with the most carefully constructed survey. A person may answer as
he or she feels the company wants them to (especially when asked to provide personal
information), or the questions may not be asked in ways that are fully understood by the
respondents. If responding to the survey takes up too much of their time a respondent may elect
not to participate, or only answer the questions they consider most important. It is, however,
important for people to have systems of ‘safe feedback,’ as this gives a core or functional team
more personal connection to their company and how it uses SAP.
Objective value methods, however, are completely impersonal and can provide immense benefit
to the company without taking up any of the user’s time. Those who elected to tell us about their
collection methods for competency, satisfaction, and value often looked to the Help Desk. Work
requests and error counts are common means of figuring out what is potentially going wrong.
Narrowing down the areas of concern is paramount for any core team, as this can help preempt
blowouts later down the road. However, this can be difficult as well, as the human element once
again rears its head. Some people will suffer in silence rather than tell people they are in trouble,
and others may have missed a training instance and over-utilize the help as a secondary means
of training. Still others may want to lean on actual people, such as the Super User, and strain
those resources.
- Trending tools can show priority in where you need to focus efforts.
o 1% of the budget on an SAP project is spent on training; all areas should be
maximized and balanced to the best of a company’s ability.
o Resources can always be accounted for or found.
- Trending tools can help you focus on areas which may become problems down the road.
o Get away from ‘screaming’ situations and filtering through errors.
o Inform and move resources to areas of concern in order to keep the users balanced
in the system.
- Trending tools can help you spread the burden.
o No single group is saddled with all responsibilities.
o Groups now have lists of tasks for which they can budget time, not lists of potential
tasks that need much more time to research the validity of and then resource.
When coupling trending at both a high level and a detailed level with safe feedback, you will get
both ends of the spectrum and should find the model effective and worthy of expansion.
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In the meantime, Insite has developed, through the survey, its interviews, and its own work with
trending tools, a sample implementation and sustainment model. For this model to work the
following is incorporated:
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Future improvements to the model go beyond the Super User and include more of the general
user base. Insite feels that in order to further refine the model and increase the ‘buy-in’ to the
SAP system, the following options should be considered:
! User-Managed Certifications / Self Assessment: Integrating a Learning Management
System into everyday SAP use so that Users are empowered to improve their SAP skills
while on the job, not away at a training class (or taking up a Super Users’ time).
! Further refinement of documentation management: Further models may be able to create
subsets of users who frequently contribute to the improvement of documentation and
therefore the business processes.
! Pre-emptive Support: Refinement of the support system integrated into SAP to help users
instantly, before they become too lost or begin to seek the Super User.
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Conclusion
The Super User Model, Dirk Manuel says, is “a model which has to work.” It is one of the best
ways to connect with the end-users of the SAP system at a human level, and is also the most
scalable and sustainable model. In order for it to work, and to be able to be of value to the
company and improve the bottom line, it must be nurtured both analytically and humanly. The
balance between the two is paramount as the people involved – the Super Users themselves -
are often extraordinary, highly-skilled and knowledgeable people. From finding them, through
training them, to supporting and rewarding them, a consistent, ever-improving system should be
placed alongside consistent, ever-improving people. This hand-in-hand approach between the
two should mean above-board involvement, and therefore superior use of a company’s SAP
investment. Whether a small project or a major global rollout, the time the Super Users give, the
role they play, and the support they provide are vital to the success of any SAP implementation,
and therefore, given the significant investment in such implementations, vital to the continued
existence of a successful company.
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