How to develop and maintain your internal SuccessFactors Administrators
As your company is moving to SAP SuccessFactors your administrators will require a different skillset and approach. As an SAP SuccessFactors partner, we are all experienced in providing support for your solutions, however, your internal workforce should include a well-developed SuccessFactors analyst and/or admin to internally meet your business expectations.
Whereas partners are mainly focused on 3rd line support such as complex system issues and configuration changes, your internal SuccessFactors admins should be able to provide 1st and 2nd line support. Some examples are login issues, managing role-based permissions, updating picklists, and managing simple module-specific settings.
Our vision on learning
We believe people learn in all kinds of ways: via e-learning modules, or in a classroom, but mostly by experience and a hands-on approach.
Where and When do you learn most
The fact that we learn the most while we are working is not just our assumption. Research shows that 70% of what we learn, we learn via experience. Another 20% we pick up in contact and consultation with our colleagues, and about 10% of our knowledge and skills we gather during the formal learning moments, like training courses. This phenomenon is called the 70-20-10 principle!
What to expect from your employees
Because employees learn the most from hands-on experience, we want to encourage each employee to explore learning opportunities in the project situation and/or with the support of colleagues. And, if this isn’t enough, employees can still opt for a more formal study setting, like a training.
Does an explanation of an experienced colleague do the job for your employee, or maybe coaching? Can your employee learn by participating in a project, by taking the chairman role in a meeting, by tagging along with another colleague in another job for a day? The manager can help determine the best training method.
What are the options for learning at work – in general
• Job shadowing
• Coaching
• SAP Learning Hub
• Researching the internet
• Watching instructional videos
• Peer feedback
• Becoming active in Twitter, blogs, forums and other online platforms for knowledge exchange
What are the options for learning at work – some top resources
SAP Learning Hub – Access to online courses, social and e-learning opportunities, learning rooms, etc.
Launchpad Support – (S-id) This site allows members to submit incident forms to report errors in the system. This is also a good tool to search the library of Knowledge Based Articles (a.k.a. KBAs).
Help Portal – Extra resource that provides documentation on admin guides, implementation guides, product road maps, module information, system requirements and technical prerequisites, release information, and other useful documents.
SAP Community Network – A blog post on the SAP Community Network (SCN) containing a collection of the most useful SuccessFactors resources.
SAP Jam – SAP Jam is a platform that enables SAP customers and partners to interact with SAP employees and collaborate with them in online groups upon invitation.
Open SAP– openSAP is SAP’s open online course provider and has proven to be a successful enabler for innovation adoption at scale and thought leader in cloud-based knowledge transfer.
SuccessFactors YouTube Channel – See product overviews, demos, and customer videos.
Other SuccessFactors Resources – White papers, case studies, webcasts, industry research, etc.
Problem Solving
SuccessFactors Admins should be able to resolve Tier 1 issues using a basic problem-solving strategy.
What is problem-solving?
A Planned and Informed Attack on a Problem is conducted in a Cooperative manner and draws out the Collective Best from the assembled resources to achieve the Best Resolution of the problem through an Action Plan that has the Commitment of the implementers.
How to solve the problem?
Seven Step Process:
- State the problem – the ‘’headline’’;
- Provide background to the problem;
- Generate ideas for solutions;
- Select ideas to pursue;
- Get benefits/concerns of selected ideas;
- If any critical exist, work on them using a mini problem solve
- If no critical concerns remain, prepare action plan / next steps
The journey toward an autonomous team
As your team develops, your mission is to become one ‘’high-performance team’’. As a team, you can discuss the Agile values (Commitment, Focus, Openness, Respect, and Courage) which will help to create a compelling vision for themselves, a way to create a path that leads to a High-Performance team.
Would like to learn more about effectively developing your SuccessFactors admins?
As an SAP Partner, we help our customers in developing their teams with an Agile approach. Please contact us here to discuss your needs.
