Ever since I collaborated with several industry experts last year on The Future of SAP HCM Consulting and SuccessFactors (updated 2013 version is coming in February) I
have been getting questions on the best way to learn SuccessFactors,
especially from individuals that are looking to transition from their
SAP HCM careers and I typically passed along formal information
regarding SuccessFactors training. I recently had dinner with my friend Chris McNarney and
given he is one of the few well-known SAP HCM Consultants to fully make
the transition to SuccessFactors Consulting I wanted to share his
journey via this Q & A.

Chris, Tell me a bit about your background and the transition from doing SAP HCM Consulting to SuccessFactors?
Somewhere back in what seems like a million years ago (2005) I was working at a global corporation
when they purchased SAP. I joined the project team and spent the next
several years learning most of the areas of the SAP HCM on-premise suit
as well as managing the production support team. For the past three and a
half years have been doing independent consulting, specializing in the
Talent Management modules of SAP. Prior to getting into SuccessFactors, I
have worked pretty extensively with the Talent/Succession module,
Nakisa, LSO & Performance Management and my SAP origins come from
OM, PA and HR interfaces, which gave me a really good base to consult in
the Talent Management modules.
So
obviously when your competitive differentiators in consulting are your
skills within the SAP HCM Talent Management modules, you are going to be acutely aware of SAP purchasing SuccessFactors and adopting the SuccessFactors modules as the ‘go forward’ solution. These days I actually consult in both SAP HCM on premise and SuccessFactors and its very interesting to see the differences in the two solutions during implementations where you can appreciate the different strengths and weaknesses of the various software delivery types.
How do you go about learning to consult in SuccessFactors?
I was extremely fortunate to get
connected to SuccessFactors partner Blue Ascent that was made up of a
number of expert level SAP HCM consultants who had worked together on
various projects in the past. They really committed to taking people
that were experienced and knowledgeable in the on-premise SAP HCM world
and giving them opportunities to ramp up in SuccessFactors in a way that
was not reckless to their customers. What I mean by reckless is that
it’s obviously no secret, and has been well documented on Twitter and
SCN that every SAP HCM consultancy on the planet is trying to build a
SuccessFactors practice and I’m no exception to this as prior to the
acquisition; my SuccessFactors experience was not impressive. What’s
reckless though is that it’s very easy as a consultancy to sell work,
and then staff it with people whose only SuccessFactors experience is a 3
week crash course in SuccessFactors and let them try to learn on the job.
In my own case, I
first attended the core SuccessFactors mastery course that provided
exposure to the fundamentals of SuccessFactors (the instances,
provisioning, Success Factory, etc.) and covered the Performance
Management, Goal Management and Employee Profile modules. After that, I
took Employee Central Mastery (this built on the first course and
introduced the use of XML with SuccessFactors), Succession Mastery as
well as Compensation Mastery and then soon I’ll be taking a Workforce
Analytics course. So now I’ve got all this training, but I still didn’t
have any real world implementation experience and formal training is
good, but it never has the unique requirements that you’re going to get
on a real project. For real world experience, Blue
Ascent partnered with another group that was a SuccessFactors
implementation partner prior to the acquisition and provided me with two
excellent training opportunities. In each project I had a mentor
consultant who led the design sessions, was the primary configurator and
decision maker, but I was allowed to learn from them and execute tasks
throughout the project. Obviously since these projects were training
roles, the consulting rate reflected that, but it was more than balanced
out by the experience and long term opportunity from getting real
SuccessFactors project experience. From the customer perspective, I was
still providing some value, but I was learning the module with the
support of a lead consultant. This training has proven to be invaluable,
as after those 2 projects, I’ve been able to take on SuccessFactors projects as the lead consultant with the experience and training needed to be successful.
How does SuccessFactors training work?
Well,
I’m obviously speaking from my own experience here as SuccessFactors
has several training delivery methods, but here is how it worked for me.
I took all of my classes virtually with the introduction mastery course
spanning three weeks though I’ve heard that since I took that first
class, the introductory class has changed somewhat and Performance
Management and Goal Management are not covered. The first two weeks of
the mastery course were going through the lessons and the class would
meet daily for an hour to ninety minutes online.
In the class the instructor would have one or more students demo their
system configuration for the group and after that the teacher would
begin the next day’s lesson explanation and walkthrough. Then the
students would read the lesson materials and complete the lesson
configuration sometime before the next day’s class.
The
other mastery courses were all only two weeks long, but those classes
all had prework activities that had to be completed before the first day
of training. What was constant among all classes was that the last week
is a case study, which were always a round of configuration based on
the customer’s requirements. The
last day of the training is always the consultant’s demonstration to
the client (the instructor). In one class I took it was a ‘live’
presentation over the phone, but usually they were screen recordings
(with audio) that were posted on the class Jam group. I became a big fan
of the screen recording features within Jam I predict it will
completely revolutionize how clients can deliver training and issue
resolution, hopefully spelling the end of the dreaded BPP. Regarding the
actual training classes, I will confess that when I readied for the
first course, I thought it’d be quite simple, but for that course and
the others, the work effort is no joke and it was a noteworthy time
commitment to do it right.
How do you compare learning SuccessFactors to SAP?
Well,
the learning curve isn’t quite as steep with SuccessFactors, simply
because SAP is built as part of ECC and requires so much peripheral
knowledge to be an expert in the space. Since SuccessFactors is largely
focused Talent Management, you don’t need knowledge of how to do things
like, run a trace, deactivate a delivered BAdI to turn your own on, look through short dumps, etc. That doesn’t mean SuccessFactors is
a piece of cake as like any software it has its nuances and is
constantly evolving with its rapid release of four updates each year.
Another challenge to picking up SuccessFactors is that it lacks the
community that SCN provides in SAP and even though there is a community
for SuccessFactors partners it’s not nearly as robust as SCN. On the
plus side though, you’ll never see a SuccessFactors consultant get on
and post that they need the entire configuration for module X to be sent
to them by the next day like you might on SCN.
Even
though it’s a new software tool and a new delivery method - at its core
- SuccessFactors is still trying to accomplish the same goals that the
SAP on-premise modules are. Since a big part of the consulting skillset
is providing input and options on a company’s business processes that
are being designed to work in concert with the software, good
consultants will find themselves having the same conversations with a
client regardless of the tool they’ve chosen to implement. Even with a
competing product like Workday – every customer who’s using that for
Talent Management is going to have a discussion about whether or not
succession is a Manager Self-Service activity or not and SAP on-premise
or SuccessFactors are no different. A good consultant will be able to
counsel a customer on the pros and cons of whatever the design decision
is and explain how the chosen software tool will (or could) interact
with that decision. I have been through enough projects and seen enough
Talent Management business processes that was just a matter of learning
how SuccessFactors accounted for those processes and what the
configuration choices were. Once I picked those things up, I can apply
that information to customer design sessions, just like I do with
on-premise SAP.
What are the some differences to being a SuccessFactors consultant as opposed to being an SAP consultant?
There
are really a lot of interesting differences, too many for me to cover
in one answer, but I’ll note some highlights. First - and especially for
independent consultants - a major difference is that when you’re an SAP
consultant you can be brought onto any client to work on any project
and you don’t have to go through an SAP partner, nor does SAP need to be
informed. With SuccessFactors, it’s not quite the same as when you work
on a SuccessFactors project, you generally need to work through a
SuccessFactors partner. Additionally, due to the nature of
SuccessFactors configuration, a consultant is granted access to the
customer’s provisioning environment (provisioning is the ‘backend’ of
SuccessFactors configuration – stuff a client cannot do on their own) by
SuccessFactors directly. It will be interesting to see how the
consulting dynamic changes as SuccessFactors continues to grow. Will
work always be moved through partners? Will there be avenues for
independents (who are generally experts in their areas) like there are
in SAP?
Another
consulting difference I’ve discovered is that SuccessFactors projects
are generally staffed without the support structure that you’d have in
an on-premise project. There’s no portal person, no basis person, no
security person or no developer. This is theoretically because those
aspects are either handled by the client or by SuccessFactors, however
there are still some technical components, which require attention such
as various interfaces to and from SuccessFactors. Some integration can
now be handled by SAP PI, but there are a lot
of files you could be importing into SuccessFactors - depending on your
implementation - and only a couple of the big ones are handed via PI.
There’s also the FTP setup and coordination, and don’t forget the Single
Sign On (SSO) setup. As a consultant you’re expected to be the point
person for the SuccessFactors side of those items. Lastly, when a client
purchases SuccessFactors they usually have internal IT staff who will
have technical questions, and you will be the first point of contact for
those questions whereas with an on-premise implementation those
questions usually would go to another consultant.
On a similar line of thinking, what are some of the differences with SuccessFactors and SAP on-premise projects?
From
a project perspective, there are obviously differences too. I sat
through my very first SuccessFactors kickoff project and laughed to
myself as I watched the lead consultant pull up the client’s
SuccessFactors instance 10 minutes into the meeting and demonstrate how
to execute Succession Planning. I compare that to an SAP project where
the first number of weeks of a project are spent getting your
environments setup, the portal running, setting up access and just
generally ironing out those fundamental setup issues. The SaaS model
creates such a smoother project experience without having to having to
hassle with the usual project functional/security/basis/portal hassles
and from a customer perspective, this is such a big win. SAP customers
have to feel helpless sometimes as their consultants go around and
around with the bowels of SAP setup (“hey, it’ll be three weeks before
TREX is setup, here are some screenshots you can look at until then”).
Of course, that’s the cup half full and the cup half empty is that with SuccessFactors, discussions of customizations are basically non-starters.
In SAP, you can change almost anything because the customer has the
source code and SAP provides so many custom code opportunities with
BAdIs. Since SuccessFactors has the source code, when your customer
tells you that they don’t like how something works in SuccessFactors and
it can’t be configured to work the way they want, their only recourse
is to contact SuccessFactors and ask to have this feature included down
the road. In the SAP on-premise world, getting customer requests turned
into a reality is not a simple proposition. I can
say from my own experience consulting in SuccessFactors that the
requests for customizations are much fewer than they are when I consult
in SAP (though they still happen!). It’s hard to speculate exactly why
this is but I know that in SAP quite often we find ourselves customizing
something simply because we customized something else earlier and these
changes tend to build on each, like little white lies tend to build on
each other to cover the earlier ones. Maybe in SuccessFactors, because we haven’t already customized we don’t have to hassle with trying to cover up for our earlier deviations.
Maybe customers already know going in they can’t ask to customize to
they just accept the out of the box solution whereas in SAP they can’t
always resist the temptation to say “the process drives the software, not the other way around.”
When
you look at the Talent Management offerings of SuccessFactors, you can
tell that it has the advantages of being built more recently and
exclusively for Talent Management, whereas SAP HCM Talent Management was
built to fit into the mold of the rest of SAP. A great example of that
is security as in SAP you spend quite a bit of time in this area and
likely have at
least one person dedicated exclusively to HCM security navigating the
murky waters of structural authorization profiles where in
SuccessFactors that work can all be done by a superuser.
For those of us who have seen both sides to security (SAP and
SuccessFactors), it is pretty amazing to see the differences.
SuccessFactors security is administered through something known as Role
Based Permissions (RBP) and a superuser (note – does NOT need to be a
dedicated security expert or even a functional consultant) can go in and
in a matter of about 90 seconds can say that everyone who is a manager
should have access to function X, Y and Z with edit access to fields A, B
and C for all direct reports and then one level down of indirect
reports. There’s no authorization profile assignment to the job or to
the position. There’s no
“now that you’ve done this wait 12 hours for the job to pick up”.
There’s no ‘you need to follow the security request process, check back
in 15 business days’. It’s there, and it’s done, and it’s very
impressive. My point of this is that because SuccessFactors was built
more recently than was SAP HCM, it benefitted more naturally from
advancements in technology.
Any words of wisdom for those looking to make the transition?
Purely
my own perspective, right now there are so many customers out there who
are legacy SAP HCM customers and are interested in the SuccessFactors
modules going forward. Those customers are desperate for people who can
help them appreciate the differences between the two systems, who can
help integrate data from SAP to SuccessFactors (because that IS an effort)
and help them use SuccessFactors in a way that will not eventually burn
them should they ever end up being full cloud customers and not just
hybrid customers. Seize the opportunity to be that source of information
for your customers.
Additionally,
I would say try your hardest to get connected to a couple
SuccessFactors projects as a trainee like I was fortunate enough to be
able to. People may think that SuccessFactors is straightforward to
configure, but speaking from experience, there are a lot of nuances to
configuration and (like any software) there are a lot of tricks of the
trade that had I been the lead consultant on without any training with
real clients, I would have made poor consulting decisions on behalf of
my customers.
Lastly, there isn’t
the network of knowledge sharing in SuccessFactors that there is in the
SAP HCM world. I have been tremendously lucky to have met so many
great independent consultants and work with good SuccessFactors
partners, but if you don’t have a network built up, then make sure to
use the resources that are available. A number of individuals have
posted great blogs here on SCN and there’s so much to be learned on
Twitter from people like Jarret Pazahanick and Luke Marson, not to mention the SAP and SuccessFactors LinkedIn group. The upcoming HR2013 conference will have 17 sessions on SuccessFactors so that is another avenue to become more educated.
I
hope you enjoyed reading about Chris’s journey to become a
SuccessFactors consultant as you can see the hard work and effort he has
put in over the past year. One thing that has become pretty clear is
how important it is for SAP HCM and SuccessFactors customers to realize
that the dramatic shift that has occurred due to the SuccessFactors
acquisition. It has caused the SAP HCM consulting industry to scramble
which has turned into a Wild West
environment with a lot of consultants and consulting firms willing to
cut the corners to get their foot in the door or claiming expertise and
experience that they don’t really have. It is more important than ever
to make sure you follow the Seven Tips to ensure you hire the Right Consultant and be on the lookout for Signs you Should Not Trust your SAP/SuccessFactors Consultant. For SAP HCM consultants reading this I would high recommend that if you are considering making the move to SuccessFactors to take
the time and effort that Chris outlined above and do it the “right way”
as nothing worthwhile in life comes easy. Chris and I look forward to
any questions or additional insights so please let us know in the
comments below.
You can follow me on Twitter at SAP_Jarret
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Hi Jarret,
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Thanks Luke for the kind words and additional insights as your SuccessFactors and SAP HCM consulting: The Wild West of 2013 really did a great job on shining a light on this topic from another angle and some of the "cowboys/cowgirls" that are claiming expertise without going through the the process the "right way" that Chris outlined above
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Great insight and delighted to hear the perspective from someone who has "done it". Thanks Jarret for writing up the conversation.
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Hi Stephen:
I'm not nearly the prolific blogger as some others on SCN, but I've actually drafted a blog I need to clean up an publish that walks through mapping some of the OM objects that are interfaced in a hybrid implementation to the SFSF field which would be the best destination to incorporate with SFSF functionality.
Chris-
Interesting ... and hang in there on the blogging! I'm not the most prolific nor natural writer (takes me lots of iterations to be happy enough to publish) but I'm glad I bothered when I finally get there.
Stephen
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Chris, please share this blog when ready!
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Hi Chris,
Jyoti
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Hi Stephen,
. I think so far that I am one of the only person to cross-post in both communities and that was at the request of SAP/SuccessFactors, which goes to show how far the integration of the communities has to go.
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I can see the argument for not differentiating.
Stephen-
I hope so and I hope it's not just thought leadership that SuccessFactors bring to SCN. Time will tell...
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Thanks for the detailed comment Stephen and kind words. Much like you I believe SCN has made a mistake in not building a SuccessFactors space with SCN so that all the information was in one place. Since SAP was willing to pay 3.4B for SuccessFactors and kept the name of the company it is strange they want to consolidate it within the existing HCM group on SCN. I am hoping in 2013 Chip Rodgers and Mark Yolton will reconsider as feels like a real opportunity especially as ~80% of SuccessFactors customers are not SAP HCM customers.-
Surprise to know that 80 % of the SF Customers are not SAP HCM Customers. Great Success already for SF-
That is one of the reasons they convinced SAP to pay 3.4B
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Hi Stephen,
Jyoti-
Hi Jyoti,
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Hi Jarret,
Vijay Mohan G-
Thanks Vijay for the kind words and Chris and I could look at extending this series and going into more depth if there is interest within the community.
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Hi Jarret
Akhilesh-
Thanks Akhilesh for the kind words
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I thought I would shared a question that I have gotten repeatedly over the past year and got again yesterday on a Linkedin comment to this blog.
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Dear Jarret,
Vijay Mohan G-
Chris and I are happy to have inspired you and my recommendation would be to review the official SuccessFactors Partner Portal determine the local partners in your area, and reach out to each of them. I know that many partners globally are looking to grow their SuccessFactors practices (although many are looking for experienced hires).
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Jarret
Thanks to Chris for sharing more about SF training.
Jyothi-
Hi Jyothi
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Hi Jarret and Chris,
Looking forward to know more about the training information soon. It is a very nice blog you provided. Thank you once again!
Padma-
Thanks for the comment Padma and Chris and I plan to continue this series in 2013.
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Thanks Jarret and Chris McNarney for putting this interview together.
I had the luck to train Chris on Employee Central and Succession and really appreciate the insight you give on SuccessFactors training approach and the usage of Jam's video capabilities in the acceleration of the learning.
Also, your looking back at your initial training after having shadowed and actually implemented SAP and SF projects is very useful for us as a training department.
Looking forward to talking with you in your future Workforce Analytics and Planning Implementation Training.
Regards,
Julien.-
Hey Julien!
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Chris, It is like a "Behind the Scenes" VH1 music special as your past (ie SF teacher) are coming out of the woodwork. Hopefully you dont have anything else in your past you forgot to tell me as the truth will come out on SCN
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Hey Chris.
- You cannot learn everything from a class. I am recovering from an injury right now and this is the kind of teaching that is out of scope for a regular training. The coach gives awareness and general principles on how to avoid injuries, but does not go into detail. It is a bit like the "not possible"part of the product we do not teach. However, it is still possible to educate (vs. train) to react in this kind of situations. Our goal is to educate you on where to find the information when the training is over, and our way to do is to provide you all the possible links to our documentation. I am open to any feedback you would like to share about it.
- People like an
exhausting effort, when they are guided through it. So, be prepared to
the WFAP class I will teach you in February(I just checked
). Remember the EC training? It will be that intense, but for one week only.
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Thanks & Regards,Saquib Khan, PMP“ I mentor every day, pass on wisdom to help people to anticipate rather than react. It frees people and speeds up their development.”-
Hi Saquib:
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Big ups to both Chris and Jarret for this detailed write up. With reference to the previous comments on how to get onto the sfsf train you have to be linked to a certified successfactors partner this i tihink is more stringent than getting to the SAP HCM space.
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Thanks for the comment and kind words Latunde. I am hoping as well that SuccessFactors follows the SAP SCN model of having an open community to help share information as I think it would help differentiate them with some of their competitors.
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Hi,
I read you column, and immediately I try to register in successfactors trainning, but the webpage says:
"Only current SuccessFactors customers are able to register and gain access to our customer community and
subsequently to the Success Academy Portal".
Regards
Francisco-
Hi Francisco
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Hi Jarrett,
Padma-
Hi Padma
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Hi Francisco
Chris
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Hi Jarret,
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Thanks Deepak for the kind words and I think many SAP HCM consultants will be making the journey to SuccessFactors that Chris did over the coming years.
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