3 People You Need On Your SAP Hybris Team
As SAP Hybris implementations ramp up, we hear more rumours about failing projects. It seems that Hybris teams and projects experience more confusion than many other SAP suite initiatives.
Many have difficulty reconciling business requirements with Hybris functionalities and putting user experience at the forefront of their project plans. They struggle to integrate systems and ultimately carry out performance testing. Their projects are littered with delays and misunderstandings between the business and technical teams. Over-selling and under-servicing is rife.
Read: 4 Signs Your SAP Hybris Project May Fail
The fact that Hybris was relatively recently acquired by SAP is not enough to explain why these implementations face such obstacles. However, when you consider the number of experts in this field and the high demand for these professionals, the staffing challenges that businesses experience become very real.
Forming a strong team enables a strong foundation for any project. This is of course also true for Hybris implementations. Missteps throughout a project can be easily avoided if you have the right people planning, advising and executing. In order to avoid a SAP Hybris disaster, these are the three people you absolutely need on your team:
The Communicator (The Solution Architect)
Solution Architect is one of the most important hires any prospective Hybris team will make. Careful attention should be paid when making a selection. The Solution Architect is responsible for gathering requirements and translating them into realistic outcomes and functionalities within Hybris. This person will likely come from a functional background (strong business analysis experience) but will also have fair to strong technical skills, ideally.
If you are only able to make one hire with robust Hybris experience (which can be the case in the current market), the Solution Architect needs to be the Hybris expert. They need to have an excellent understanding of the technical and functional aspects of Hybris and will steer the project at various critical junctures. The core function of their role as the communicator and planner, necessitates that they be able to credibly intervene when business pressures cannot be met and push for achievable results within Hybris.
The Link (The Technical Lead)
The Technical Lead forms a solid connection between the Solution Architect / Business and Developers. Their role is to coordinate the creation of the technical architecture, review code and lead testing activities. More importantly they act as a translator in many cases for the development work and are able to guide and carry out development themselves. They will be responsible for ensuring that the development team remains on track.
This hire is particularly important if the Solution Architect on your Hybris team is not as experienced technically, or if they’ve not been responsible for any hands-on technical activities in recent projects. The Technical Lead may also be called a Senior Developer or Technical Architect in some instances.
The Builder (The Developer)
When it comes to developers, its quite easy for teams to go into autopilot and use the similar job specifications as for other projects. Hybris projects however, require a unique kind of developer. They are the Builders of the project and are responsible for laying steady technical foundations that should be unshakable.
Ideally, every developer on a hybris project should have strong Java skills and background in e-commerce solutions. They should certainly have Hybris experience (certification would be a bonus) or else be a very senior developer. The best developers will be highly independent coders and capable of end-to-end coding rather than just enhancements.
As the Builders, developers play a crucial role in executing the project. Poor code or unfixed bugs in integrations or enhancements can easily cause devastating delays, which is why developers should always be selected carefully.
Read here: 3 Qualities of a Successful SAP Hybris Consultant
The challenges of many SAP Hybris projects are rooted in staffing. When teams can’t find the right consultants or when they don’t know exactly what kind of skills they’re looking for, this can have a devastating impact on the drive of a project. There are, however, good hires that can be made to prevent multiple obstacles typically faced throughout a project. In the case of SAP Hybris projects, core skills rest in the Solution Architect, Technical Lead and Developers and these roles should be carefully considered when staffing a project for success.
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