Example project plan

Project plan for an SAP S/4HANA implementation

An SAP S/4HANA implementation project plan for this brownfield conversion spans 52 weeks, with 14 phases, 121 tasks, and an approximate €3,696,000 budget. It covers governance, assessment, readiness, custom code, integrations, data quality, testing, training, go-live, and hypercare for a 900-employee manufacturer using FI/CO, MM, SD, and PP.

  • 52 Weeks
  • 14 Phases
  • 121 Tasks
  • Budget approx. €3,696,000

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Example plan

SAP ECC to SAP S/4HANA Brownfield Conversion

This project will convert the organization’s existing SAP ECC landscape to SAP S/4HANA using a brownfield approach. It will cover core business processes in FI/CO, MM, SD, and PP, while also addressing custom code, integrations, data quality, and technical readiness. The program must preserve business continuity for a 900-employee manufacturing company and support a controlled go-live at the start of the fiscal year. Strong governance, testing, training, and hypercare are essential to reduce operational and reporting risk.

Total Progress0%
52Weeks
0/14Phases
0/121Tasks
€3,696,000Budget
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Phases

1

Phase 1: Program Mobilization and Governance

Pending · 3W · 0/5
SAP Program Director / Program Manager
0

Establish the governance model, delivery standards, workstream structure and decision rights for the brownfield conversion. This creates the control framework required to manage the fiscal-year go-live and cross-functional dependencies.

Approve the program charter covering FI/CO, MM, SD, PP, plants, interfaces, custom code and fiscal-year go-live objectives
Oct 2 – Oct 4 3 days
Executive Sponsor / Steering Committee
Establish the steering committee, project management office, workstream forums and escalation paths
Oct 2 – Oct 5 4 days
SAP Program Director / Program Manager
Nominate workstream leads and define the RACI matrix for finance, procurement, sales, manufacturing, data, testing, technology and change
Oct 6 – Oct 12 5 days
SAP Program Director / Program Manager
Set up the integrated plan, RAID log, change-control process, document repository and status-reporting templates
Oct 6 – Oct 11 4 days
SAP Program Director / Program Manager
Confirm resource commitments from internal departments, plants, SAP Basis, business key users and the external SAP Systems Integrator
Oct 2 – Oct 5 4 days
CIO or Head of IT
Document the current FI/CO, MM, SD and PP process baseline across all legal entities, plants and distribution locations
Oct 23 – Nov 1 8 days
Finance Transformation Lead, Procurement and Materials Management Lead, Sales and Distribution Lead, Production Planning and Manufacturing Lead
Capture transaction volumes, month-end and year-end activities, MRP runs, production scheduling windows, warehouse peaks and critical batch jobs
Oct 23 – Oct 30 6 days
SAP Basis and Infrastructure Lead
Inventory ECC custom programs, enhancements, modifications, user exits, forms, workflows, reports, interfaces, add-ons and background jobs
Oct 23 – Nov 1 8 days
ABAP and Custom Code Lead
Map master data and transactional data objects, retention requirements and historical reporting dependencies for materials, customers, suppliers, finance and production
Oct 23 – Oct 30 6 days
Data Migration and Master Data Owner
Assess current integrations with MES, EDI partners, warehouse systems, CRM, banks, tax services, logistics providers and other external platforms
Oct 23 – Oct 31 7 days
Enterprise Architecture and Integration Lead
Identify current authorization roles, segregation-of-duties conflicts, critical access paths and audit-control dependencies
Oct 23 – Oct 27 5 days
Information Security, Internal Controls and Compliance Representatives
Document business pain points, manual workarounds, plant-specific variants and known ECC process deviations
Oct 23 – Oct 31 7 days
Plant Managers and Business Key Users
Confirm in-scope legal entities, plants, modules, interfaces, historical data, reports and organizational units through a signed scope baseline
Nov 2 – Nov 7 4 days
SAP Program Director / Program Manager
Execute SAP Readiness Check and simplification-item analysis for the selected S/4HANA release, including mandatory finance, logistics and technical changes
Oct 30 – Nov 3 5 days
SAP Systems Integrator
Run ATC and custom-code analysis against the complete ECC code inventory and classify findings by business criticality, remediation effort and retirement potential
Oct 30 – Nov 10 10 days
ABAP and Custom Code Lead
Assess the compatibility and S/4HANA support status of SAP add-ons, industry solutions, third-party tools and plug-ins
Oct 30 – Nov 3 5 days
SAP Basis and Infrastructure Lead
Develop the target infrastructure, database, storage, network, backup and disaster-recovery sizing for development, quality and production environments
Oct 30 – Nov 7 7 days
SAP Basis and Infrastructure Lead
Review interface technologies, IDocs, RFCs, APIs, middleware mappings, EDI formats, certificates and monitoring capabilities for S/4HANA compatibility
Oct 30 – Nov 8 8 days
Enterprise Architecture and Integration Lead
Assess data conversion complexity for business partners, material master, inventory, open items, assets, production master data and historical transactions
Oct 30 – Nov 6 6 days
Data Migration and Master Data Owner
Baseline authorization, segregation-of-duties, sensitive transactions, technical users and audit requirements against the target S/4HANA model
Oct 30 – Nov 3 5 days
Information Security, Internal Controls and Compliance Representatives
Define the target system landscape, client strategy, transport path, conversion tooling and refresh approach for all project environments
Nov 8 – Nov 15 6 days
SAP Basis and Infrastructure Lead
Consolidate technical findings into a readiness report with decisions, owners, due dates, assumptions and prerequisites for the conversion
Nov 16 – Nov 21 4 days
SAP Program Director / Program Manager
Conduct FI/CO fit-to-standard workshops covering the universal journal, controlling objects, allocations, asset accounting, period close, budgeting and management reporting
Nov 27 – Dec 4 6 days
CFO and Finance Transformation Lead
Conduct MM fit-to-standard workshops covering purchasing, inventory management, valuation, supplier processes, goods movements and invoice verification
Nov 27 – Dec 1 5 days
Procurement and Materials Management Lead
Conduct SD fit-to-standard workshops covering customer master, pricing, order management, delivery, shipping, billing and credit processes
Nov 27 – Dec 1 5 days
Sales and Distribution Lead
Conduct PP and plant fit-to-standard workshops covering BOMs, routings, work centers, MRP, capacity planning, production orders, confirmations and shop-floor execution
Nov 27 – Dec 5 7 days
Production Planning and Manufacturing Lead
Validate cross-module scenarios for procure-to-pay, order-to-cash, plan-to-produce, inventory valuation and record-to-report
Dec 6 – Dec 13 6 days
SAP Systems Integrator
Define the target reporting, analytics, forms, output management and statutory reporting approach for finance and operations
Nov 27 – Dec 1 5 days
CFO and Finance Transformation Lead
Design the target authorization roles, approval workflows and segregation-of-duties controls for business and plant roles
Nov 27 – Dec 4 6 days
Information Security, Internal Controls and Compliance Representatives
Document plant-specific requirements, approved deviations, retained ECC behaviors and process harmonization decisions
Nov 27 – Dec 5 7 days
Plant Managers and Business Key Users
Define target integration patterns for MES, EDI, warehouse, banking, CRM, tax and logistics interfaces
Nov 27 – Dec 1 5 days
Enterprise Architecture and Integration Lead
Produce and approve the solution blueprint, process decision log, fit-gap register and signed design authority decisions
Dec 14 – Dec 20 5 days
SAP Program Director / Program Manager
Prioritize the custom-code backlog using business criticality, usage frequency, conversion impact, plant dependency and retirement feasibility
Dec 4 – Dec 7 4 days
ABAP and Custom Code Lead
Remediate FI/CO developments affected by the universal journal, business partner model, asset accounting, controlling tables and changed financial data structures
Dec 4 – Dec 15 10 days
ABAP and Custom Code Lead
Remediate MM developments covering purchasing, inventory, valuation, material documents, supplier data and goods-movement processing
Dec 4 – Dec 14 9 days
ABAP and Custom Code Lead
Remediate SD developments covering business partners, pricing, deliveries, billing, outputs, credit management and customer interfaces
Dec 4 – Dec 14 9 days
ABAP and Custom Code Lead
Remediate PP and manufacturing developments covering BOMs, routings, MRP, production orders, confirmations, capacity and plant-specific transactions
Dec 4 – Dec 18 11 days
ABAP and Custom Code Lead
Replace obsolete custom interfaces, reports, forms, workflows and transactions with approved S/4HANA standard functions, APIs or extension patterns
Dec 4 – Dec 14 9 days
SAP Systems Integrator
Retire unused, duplicate or unsupported custom objects and document the technical and business approval for each retirement
Dec 4 – Dec 8 5 days
ABAP and Custom Code Lead
Execute developer unit tests and technical regression tests for all remediated, redesigned and retained custom objects
Dec 19 – Dec 29 9 days
ABAP and Custom Code Lead
Run repeated ATC scans, syntax checks, performance checks and code-quality reviews against the selected S/4HANA release
Jan 1 – Jan 8 6 days
SAP Systems Integrator
Validate remediation of critical background jobs, extracts, forms and month-end programs with their business owners
Dec 19 – Dec 27 7 days
Test and Quality Manager
Release the remediated code package into the integration backlog with traceability from finding to transport and test evidence
Dec 4 – Dec 7 4 days
SAP Program Director / Program Manager
Approve the target S/4HANA architecture, system landscape, connectivity, security zones, resilience model, monitoring and operational ownership
Dec 25 – Jan 1 6 days
Enterprise Architecture and Integration Lead
Create the detailed interface catalog with source, target, protocol, frequency, data owner, error handling, monitoring and cutover dependency for every integration
Dec 25 – Jan 3 8 days
Enterprise Architecture and Integration Lead
Define API, IDoc, RFC, middleware, EDI, certificate and message-mapping specifications for MES, warehouse, banks, tax, CRM and logistics partners
Dec 25 – Jan 3 8 days
Enterprise Architecture and Integration Lead
Create the migration-object inventory and mapping specifications for business partners, materials, suppliers, customers, assets, open items, inventory and production master data
Dec 25 – Jan 3 8 days
Data Migration and Master Data Owner
Define data ownership, cleansing rules, mandatory fields, duplicate handling, validation thresholds and approval responsibilities by data domain
Dec 25 – Jan 1 6 days
Data Migration and Master Data Owner
Define reconciliation rules for opening balances, inventory quantities and values, receivables, payables, assets, CO objects and production master data
Dec 25 – Jan 1 6 days
CFO and Finance Transformation Lead
Design the target authorization role architecture, technical users, interface users and segregation-of-duties controls
Dec 25 – Jan 1 6 days
Information Security, Internal Controls and Compliance Representatives
Define transport management, release branching, environment refreshes, test data handling, backup and rollback procedures
Dec 25 – Dec 29 5 days
SAP Basis and Infrastructure Lead
Approve detailed interface, migration, reconciliation and architecture specifications for configuration and development
Jan 4 – Jan 9 4 days
SAP Program Director / Program Manager
Configure FI/CO for the chart of accounts, ledgers, controlling areas, profit centers, cost centers, asset accounting, allocations, closing and tax requirements
Jan 22 – Feb 6 12 days
Finance Transformation Lead
Configure MM for purchasing, source determination, inventory management, valuation, account determination, invoice verification and supplier processes
Jan 22 – Feb 6 12 days
Procurement and Materials Management Lead
Configure SD for business partners, sales areas, pricing, availability, deliveries, shipping, billing, credit and output processing
Jan 22 – Feb 6 12 days
Sales and Distribution Lead
Configure PP for BOMs, routings, work centers, MRP areas, planning parameters, production orders, confirmations and capacity planning
Jan 22 – Feb 8 14 days
Production Planning and Manufacturing Lead
Configure cross-module integration for procure-to-pay, order-to-cash, plan-to-produce, inventory valuation and financial postings
Jan 22 – Feb 2 10 days
SAP Systems Integrator
Build and adapt interfaces for MES, EDI, warehouse systems, banks, tax services, CRM and logistics partners
Jan 22 – Feb 6 12 days
Enterprise Architecture and Integration Lead
Configure output forms, invoices, purchase orders, delivery documents, labels, statutory reports and electronic messages
Jan 22 – Feb 1 9 days
SAP Systems Integrator
Configure approval workflows for purchasing, invoices, sales exceptions, master data and finance processes
Jan 22 – Jan 29 6 days
SAP Systems Integrator
Build and validate authorization roles, composite roles, technical users and segregation-of-duties controls for corporate and plant users
Jan 22 – Feb 2 10 days
Information Security, Internal Controls and Compliance Representatives
Build operational, financial, production and management reports, including required extracts and reconciliation reports
Jan 22 – Feb 2 10 days
SAP Systems Integrator
Schedule and validate critical batch jobs for MRP, interfaces, settlements, allocations, billing, payment processing and period close
Jan 22 – Jan 29 6 days
SAP Basis and Infrastructure Lead
Execute the initial technical conversion in the sandbox and establish the transport baseline for configuration, code and integrations
Jan 22 – Jan 31 8 days
SAP Basis and Infrastructure Lead
Prepare module-level unit-test scripts, representative master data and controlled test users for all configured processes
Jan 22 – Jan 29 6 days
Test and Quality Manager
Profile and cleanse material master data, including descriptions, units of measure, classification, valuation, MRP parameters and duplicate records
Feb 12 – Feb 22 9 days
Data Migration and Master Data Owner
Cleanse customer and supplier records, business partner relationships, tax attributes, payment terms, bank data and duplicate accounts
Feb 12 – Feb 21 8 days
Data Migration and Master Data Owner
Cleanse finance and controlling data, including open items, asset records, cost centers, profit centers, internal orders and account assignments
Feb 12 – Feb 22 9 days
CFO and Finance Transformation Lead
Validate BOMs, routings, work centers, production versions, MRP controllers, lead times, lot sizes and plant-specific production master data
Feb 12 – Feb 26 11 days
Production Planning and Manufacturing Lead
Define archival, retention and historical reporting treatment for legacy transactional data that will not be migrated to S/4HANA
Feb 12 – Feb 19 6 days
Data Migration and Master Data Owner
Finalize transformation rules, field mappings, default values, error handling and load sequencing for all approved migration objects
Feb 12 – Feb 20 7 days
Data Migration and Master Data Owner
Execute the first full migration rehearsal, including extraction, transformation, loading, validation, reconciliation and elapsed-time measurement
Feb 27 – Mar 12 10 days
Data Migration and Master Data Owner
Correct migration defects and reconcile record counts, balances, quantities, valuation and key master-data relationships after the rehearsal
Mar 13 – Mar 22 8 days
Data Migration and Master Data Owner
Approve the migration object inventory, quality thresholds, sign-off responsibilities and rehearsal results for the next test cycle
Mar 23 – Mar 28 4 days
SAP Program Director / Program Manager
Prepare the integrated test environment, representative master data, interfaces, test users, batch schedules and traceability matrix
Apr 9 – Apr 16 6 days
Test and Quality Manager
Test procure-to-pay from requisition and purchase order through goods receipt, invoice verification, payment and FI/CO posting
Apr 9 – Apr 17 7 days
Procurement and Materials Management Lead
Test order-to-cash from quotation and sales order through availability, delivery, shipment, billing, receivables and revenue recognition
Apr 9 – Apr 17 7 days
Sales and Distribution Lead
Test plan-to-produce from demand and MRP through planned order, production order, material staging, confirmation, goods receipt and settlement
Apr 9 – Apr 20 10 days
Production Planning and Manufacturing Lead
Test record-to-report, including journal postings, allocations, asset accounting, inventory valuation, period close, reporting and opening-balance reconciliation
Apr 9 – Apr 18 8 days
CFO and Finance Transformation Lead
Test warehouse, logistics, label, MES, EDI, banking, tax and customer or supplier interface scenarios with positive and negative messages
Apr 9 – Apr 19 9 days
Enterprise Architecture and Integration Lead
Execute end-to-end scenarios across representative plants, materials, production lines, warehouses, customers, suppliers and fiscal periods
Apr 9 – Apr 20 10 days
Plant Managers and Business Key Users
Validate interface monitoring, failed-message reprocessing, background jobs, workflow escalation and operational alerting
Apr 9 – Apr 17 7 days
SAP Basis and Infrastructure Lead
Execute volume and performance tests for MRP, month-end closing, billing, goods movements, warehouse activity and high-volume interfaces
Apr 23 – May 2 8 days
SAP Basis and Infrastructure Lead
Manage defect triage, severity classification, retesting, regression packs and evidence for all failed scenarios
Apr 9 – Apr 20 10 days
Test and Quality Manager
Produce the system integration test exit report with outstanding defects, workarounds, retest status and recommendation for UAT entry
May 3 – May 8 4 days
Test and Quality Manager
Define the UAT plan, acceptance criteria, business scenarios, required evidence and sign-off responsibilities for each process and plant
Jun 4 – Jun 8 5 days
Test and Quality Manager
Prepare UAT users, role assignments, test data, business scripts and defect-reporting procedures for finance and operational teams
Jun 4 – Jun 11 6 days
Change, Communications and Training Lead
Execute FI/CO UAT covering daily postings, period close, allocations, assets, reporting, controls and financial reconciliation
Jun 4 – Jun 13 8 days
CFO and Finance Transformation Lead
Execute MM and SD UAT covering purchasing, inventory, supplier invoices, sales orders, pricing, deliveries, billing and customer processes
Jun 4 – Jun 14 9 days
Procurement and Materials Management Lead and Sales and Distribution Lead
Execute PP and plant UAT covering MRP, production orders, confirmations, capacity, shop-floor execution and plant reporting
Jun 4 – Jun 14 9 days
Production Planning and Manufacturing Lead
Execute cross-functional UAT for fiscal-year transition, procure-to-pay, order-to-cash, plan-to-produce and record-to-report scenarios
Jun 4 – Jun 14 9 days
Plant Managers and Business Key Users
Validate authorization roles, segregation-of-duties controls, audit trails, approval workflows and critical-user access
Jun 4 – Jun 8 5 days
Information Security, Internal Controls and Compliance Representatives
Obtain process-owner sign-off, document accepted workarounds and approve the remaining defect disposition for go-live
Jun 4 – Jun 8 5 days
SAP Program Director / Program Manager
Map impacted roles, process changes, affected plants, training populations and required competency levels
Jun 11 – Jun 18 6 days
Change, Communications and Training Lead
Create the role-based curriculum for FI/CO, MM, SD, PP, warehouse, production, management and support users
Jun 11 – Jun 20 8 days
Change, Communications and Training Lead
Develop training materials, process simulations, job aids, quick-reference guides, control instructions and fiscal-year close procedures
Jun 11 – Jun 22 10 days
Change, Communications and Training Lead
Train and certify plant key users, finance super users, procurement leads, sales leads, production planners and service-desk representatives
Jun 11 – Jun 20 8 days
Change, Communications and Training Lead
Schedule end-user training by role, site, shift and production calendar while maintaining operational coverage
Jun 11 – Jun 15 5 days
Plant Managers and Business Key Users
Deliver targeted communications covering the go-live date, process changes, business benefits, support channels, freeze periods and user responsibilities
Jun 25 – Jun 29 5 days
Change, Communications and Training Lead
Assess training completion, readiness survey results, open knowledge gaps and availability of local support champions
Jun 11 – Jun 18 6 days
Change, Communications and Training Lead
Create the integrated cutover runbook covering system freeze, final extraction, conversion, migration, validation, interface activation, communications and command-center procedures
Jul 16 – Jul 25 8 days
SAP Program Director / Program Manager
Define the detailed fiscal-year timetable for final postings, inventory activities, open-item extraction, financial validation, year-end close and first-period opening
Jul 16 – Jul 23 6 days
CFO and Finance Transformation Lead
Define go/no-go criteria, rollback thresholds, fallback procedures, decision authorities and business continuity actions
Jul 16 – Jul 19 4 days
Executive Sponsor / Steering Committee
Establish cutover staffing, shift coverage, escalation contacts, plant support, vendor availability and command-center communication channels
Jul 16 – Jul 20 5 days
SAP Program Director / Program Manager
Execute the full go-live rehearsal with timed conversion, migration, interface restart, opening-balance checks, smoke tests and business validation
Jul 26 – Aug 3 7 days
SAP Basis and Infrastructure Lead
Review rehearsal results, update elapsed times, remove bottlenecks and rebaseline the final cutover sequence and staffing model
Aug 6 – Aug 10 5 days
SAP Program Director / Program Manager
Finalize business continuity procedures, transaction freeze communications, manual fallback forms and operational recovery instructions
Jul 16 – Jul 20 5 days
Plant Managers and Business Key Users
Enforce the transaction freeze, complete final ECC extraction and confirm that all required year-end postings and operational activities are closed
Aug 13 – Aug 14 2 days
CFO and Finance Transformation Lead
Execute the production S/4HANA system conversion, technical post-processing, transports, configuration activation and system availability checks
Aug 13 – Aug 16 4 days
SAP Basis and Infrastructure Lead
Load final master data, open items, inventory, assets, production data and other approved migration objects according to the cutover runbook
Aug 13 – Aug 15 3 days
Data Migration and Master Data Owner
Validate opening balances, inventory quantities and valuation, receivables, payables, assets, CO objects and production master data against ECC reconciliation reports
Aug 17 – Aug 22 4 days
CFO and Finance Transformation Lead
Activate and smoke-test interfaces, EDI messages, batch jobs, workflows, authorizations, forms, reporting and plant-critical transactions
Aug 13 – Aug 15 3 days
Enterprise Architecture and Integration Lead
Conduct the formal go/no-go meeting and authorize production release based on cutover evidence, business validation and fallback criteria
Aug 13 – Aug 13 1 day
Executive Sponsor / Steering Committee
Start first-period operations, monitor critical processes and transfer active issues into the hypercare command center
Aug 23 – Aug 24 2 days
SAP Program Director / Program Manager
Operate the hypercare command center with daily triage, severity-based escalation, plant coverage, defect aging and executive reporting
Aug 27 – Sep 12 13 days
SAP Program Director / Program Manager
Monitor daily finance, procurement, sales, warehouse, MRP, production, interface, batch-job and user-access performance indicators
Aug 27 – Sep 7 10 days
SAP Basis and Infrastructure Lead
Resolve critical defects affecting financial postings, opening balances, production planning, customer deliveries, supplier processing or statutory reporting
Aug 27 – Sep 11 12 days
SAP Systems Integrator
Optimize system performance, background scheduling, MRP runtimes, month-end activities, interfaces and high-volume transaction processing
Sep 12 – Sep 21 8 days
SAP Basis and Infrastructure Lead
Complete first-period close and reconcile financial statements, inventory valuation, receivables, payables, assets, production variances and management reporting
Aug 27 – Sep 4 7 days
CFO and Finance Transformation Lead
Transfer solution knowledge, runbooks, monitoring procedures, known errors and support queues to internal IT, service desk and business support teams
Sep 24 – Sep 28 5 days
SAP Program Director / Program Manager
Conduct the hypercare exit review, confirm residual-risk ownership, close or transition remaining defects and approve business-as-usual support
Aug 27 – Aug 29 3 days
CIO or Head of IT

Timeline

Timeline 14 PhasesStart: Oct 2, 2026
Phase / Task
Oct 2026
Nov 2026
Dec 2026
Jan 2027
Feb 2027
Mar 2027
Apr 2027
May 2027
Jun 2027
Jul 2027
Aug 2027
Sep 2027
W 1Oct 2
W 4Oct 23
W 7Nov 13
W 10Dec 4
W 13Dec 25
W 16Jan 15
W 19Feb 5
W 22Feb 26
W 25Mar 19
W 28Apr 9
W 31Apr 30
W 34May 21
W 37Jun 11
W 40Jul 2
W 43Jul 23
W 46Aug 13
W 49Sep 3
W 52Sep 24
Program Mobilization and GovernanceOct 2 – Oct 22 · 3 wk · 0/5
Program Mobilization and Governance
Current-State Assessment and Scope ConfirmationOct 23 – Nov 26 · 5 wk · 0/8
Current-State Assessment and Scope Confirmation
S/4HANA Readiness and Technical AssessmentOct 30 – Dec 10 · 6 wk · 0/9
S/4HANA Readiness and Technical Assessment
Fit-to-Standard and Solution DesignNov 27 – Jan 21 · 8 wk · 0/10
Fit-to-Standard and Solution Design
Custom Code RemediationDec 4 – Feb 4 · 9 wk · 0/11
Custom Code Remediation
Architecture, Integration and Data Migration DesignDec 25 – Feb 11 · 7 wk · 0/9
Architecture, Integration and Data Migration Design
S/4HANA Configuration and DevelopmentJan 22 – Apr 8 · 11 wk · 0/13
S/4HANA Configuration and Development
Data Cleansing and Migration RehearsalsFeb 12 – Apr 1 · 7 wk · 0/9
Data Cleansing and Migration Rehearsals
System Integration and End-to-End TestingApr 9 – Jun 3 · 8 wk · 0/11
System Integration and End-to-End Testing
User Acceptance and Business ValidationJun 4 – Jul 15 · 6 wk · 0/8
User Acceptance and Business Validation
Training and Change ReadinessJun 11 – Jul 15 · 5 wk · 0/7
Training and Change Readiness
Cutover Planning and Go-Live RehearsalJul 16 – Aug 12 · 4 wk · 0/7
Cutover Planning and Go-Live Rehearsal
Final Migration and Fiscal-Year Go-LiveAug 13 – Aug 26 · 2 wk · 0/7
Final Migration and Fiscal-Year Go-Live
Hypercare and StabilizationAug 27 – Sep 30 · 5 wk · 0/7
Hypercare and Stabilization
PlannedIn progressCompletedBlockedMilestones

Budget

Budget: €3,696,000
SAP Implementation and Custom Code Remediation · €1,680,000Data Migration, Integration and Testing · €840,000Change Management, Training, Cutover and Hypercare · €588,000SAP Software, Infrastructure and Technical Platform · €420,000Program Management, Architecture and Quality Assurance · €168,000
SAP Implementation and Custom Code Remediation€1,680,000
ItemQtyUnit priceTotal
S/4HANA Conversion Architect110 Person days€1,200€132,000
FI/CO Functional Consultant Team100 Person days€1,100€110,000
MM and SD Functional Consultant Team175 Person days€1,050€183,750
PP and Manufacturing Functional Consultant110 Person days€1,150€126,500
SAP Basis and Technical Conversion Lead110 Person days€1,050€115,500
ABAP Custom-Code Remediation Team460 Person days€900€414,000
S/4HANA Configuration Team450 Person days€1,050€472,500
Integration, Workflow, Reports and Forms Specialists125 Person days€1,006€125,750
Data Migration, Integration and Testing€840,000
ItemQtyUnit priceTotal
Data Migration Lead and Reconciliation Specialist90 Person days€1,000€90,000
Master Data Cleansing Specialists240 Person days€750€180,000
Migration Developers and Integration/EDI Specialists350 Person days€975€341,250
Test Manager and Quality Assurance Lead90 Person days€950€85,500
End-to-End Test Analysts140 Person days€750€105,000
Test Data, Automation and Defect Management Tooling1 Flat rate€38,250€38,250
Change Management, Training, Cutover and Hypercare€588,000
ItemQtyUnit priceTotal
Change and Training Lead100 Person days€950€95,000
Training Content and Key-User Delivery Team1 Flat rate€215,000€215,000
Communications and Adoption Specialist60 Person days€850€51,000
Cutover Management, Go-Live Command Center and Plant Travel1 Flat rate€127,000€127,000
Extended Functional and Technical Hypercare Support100 Person days€1,000€100,000
SAP Software, Infrastructure and Technical Platform€420,000
ItemQtyUnit priceTotal
S/4HANA Conversion Licensing and Subscription Changes1 Flat rate€180,000€180,000
Development, Sandbox and Test Environment Hosting12 Person days€15,000€180,000
Production Capacity Expansion, Monitoring and Backup Tooling1 Flat rate€60,000€60,000
Program Management, Architecture and Quality Assurance€168,000
ItemQtyUnit priceTotal
SAP Program Director60 Person days€950€57,000
PMO and Project Controls Lead70 Person days€700€49,000
Enterprise Architect / Independent QA Reviewer62 Person days€1,000€62,000

Risks

High

Fiscal-Year Cutover and Opening-Balance Failure

If the final migration, reconciliation or financial validation is not completed within the approved cutover window in Weeks 46–47, incorrect opening balances, incomplete transactions or unavailable interfaces could prevent the first fiscal period from opening and disrupt statutory, management and cash reporting.

Countermeasure: The CFO and Data Migration Lead must define signed reconciliation rules by Week 19, complete at least one timed fiscal-year rehearsal by Week 45, and require the Steering Committee to approve go-live only when FI/CO balances, subledgers, inventory, assets, open items and interfaces meet agreed exit criteria.
High

Critical Custom-Code Incompatibility

If ATC findings, simplification items or undocumented custom interfaces remain unresolved after Week 18, obsolete data models, transactions or enhancements may fail during integration testing or production processing.

Countermeasure: The ABAP and Custom Code Lead must complete the code inventory and risk classification by Week 12, remediate or retire all critical objects by Week 18, and provide ATC clearance, unit-test evidence and business-owner sign-off before the solution enters full integration testing.
High

Master-Data and Migration-Reconciliation Errors

If material, supplier, customer, asset, production or financial master data does not meet approved quality thresholds by the end of Week 26, migration errors may cause incorrect inventory valuation, procurement, receivables, payables, production planning or financial reporting.

Countermeasure: The Data Migration Lead and named business data owners must establish cleansing rules and ownership by Week 19, perform at least two full migration rehearsals by Week 26, and obtain signed reconciliation of record counts, balances, valuation and key master-data attributes before UAT exit.
High

Manufacturing Planning and Shop-Floor Disruption

If bills of material, routings, work centers, MRP parameters, production versions or plant-specific settings are incomplete or incorrectly converted by Week 26, MRP, capacity planning, production orders and shop-floor execution may fail after go-live.

Countermeasure: The Production Planning and Manufacturing Lead, supported by plant key users, must validate critical production master data by Week 24, execute representative plan-to-produce scenarios during Weeks 28–35, and obtain plant-level readiness approval before UAT completion in Week 41.
High

Integration, EDI and External-System Failure

If interface mappings and endpoint changes for MES, WMS, EDI partners, banks, tax services, CRM or logistics systems are not validated by Week 35, changed APIs, message formats or certificates may interrupt orders, goods movements, payments, deliveries or statutory submissions.

Countermeasure: The Enterprise Architecture and Integration Lead must baseline all interfaces by Week 8, approve specifications and ownership by Week 19, complete partner and end-to-end testing by Week 35, and verify certificates, monitoring, retry handling and production connectivity during the Week 45 rehearsal.
High

Insufficient End-to-End and Performance Testing

If testing remains focused on individual modules or excludes peak volumes, month-end closing, MRP runs, warehouse activity and cross-functional exceptions through Week 35, defects may appear only during UAT, cutover or the first fiscal period.

Countermeasure: The Test and Quality Manager must approve risk-based end-to-end scenarios by Week 28, execute order-to-cash, procure-to-pay, plan-to-produce and record-to-report tests through Week 35, and require performance, batch-window and defect-exit evidence before UAT entry and go-live approval.
High

Security, Authorization and Segregation-of-Duties Defects

If converted roles, Fiori access, privileged accounts or segregation-of-duties conflicts are not redesigned and tested before Week 41, users may be unable to perform critical activities or may obtain unauthorized access affecting financial integrity and audit compliance.

Countermeasure: The Information Security and Internal Controls Representatives must define the role and SoD matrix by Week 19, complete role testing and conflict remediation during Weeks 28–41, and require CFO, CIO and control-owner approval of critical access before the Week 45 go-live rehearsal.
High

Technical Capacity or Conversion-Window Failure

If infrastructure sizing, database capacity, batch scheduling or conversion performance is inadequate by Week 27, high-volume transactions, MRP, closing activities or the fiscal-year conversion may exceed the available processing window.

Countermeasure: The Basis and Infrastructure Lead must complete sizing and capacity validation by Week 19, run volume and peak-load tests by Week 35, and demonstrate the required backup, restore, conversion and fallback timings during the Week 45 rehearsal.
Medium

Scope Growth and ECC-Process Retention

If business units request unapproved ECC customizations or late enhancements after the Week 16 design baseline, solution divergence may increase development effort, consume the reserve and delay testing or fiscal-year readiness.

Countermeasure: The Program Manager and Steering Committee must freeze the approved scope and deviation register at Week 16, route every subsequent request through formal change control, and reject or defer changes that do not have an approved business case, budget, resource and schedule impact.
Medium

Specialist-Resource and Vendor-Capacity Constraints

If SAP, ABAP, manufacturing, migration, Basis or testing specialists are unavailable during overlapping Weeks 17–41, configuration, defect resolution and business validation may become bottlenecks and delay the cutover decision.

Countermeasure: The CIO, Program Manager and Systems Integrator must confirm named resources and backup coverage by Week 3, review capacity weekly from Week 10 onward, and secure replacement specialists within five business days when a critical role is forecast to be unavailable.
Medium

Inadequate Business Readiness and Training

If role-based training, plant involvement and support preparation are incomplete by Week 41, users may process orders, goods movements, production transactions or financial postings incorrectly and create workarounds after go-live.

Countermeasure: The Change and Training Lead must identify affected roles by Week 16, publish role-based materials and train key users during Weeks 37–41, and require each plant and functional owner to confirm readiness, attendance and support coverage before go-live approval.
Medium

Hypercare Overload and Support-Handover Failure

If critical defects, support procedures, monitoring or knowledge transfer remain incomplete at the end of Week 47, the support organization may be unable to resolve incidents during the first close, production cycle or customer billing run.

Countermeasure: The Program Manager and IT Service Owner must establish severity-based support, monitoring and escalation procedures by Week 42, staff extended hypercare for Weeks 48–52, and complete knowledge transfer, service acceptance and open-defect disposition before transition to business-as-usual support.

Stakeholders

ES

Executive Sponsor / Steering Committee

Owns strategic direction, funding, scope escalation, and go-live approval

Involve: Phase 1
CO

CIO or Head of IT

Owns technology strategy, risk acceptance, architecture decisions, and internal IT capacity

Involve: Phase 1
CA

CFO and Finance Transformation Lead

Approves FI/CO design, financial controls, closing processes, opening balances, and audit readiness

Involve: Phase 2
SP

SAP Program Director / Program Manager

Coordinates workstreams, dependencies, milestones, budget, and delivery governance

Involve: Phase 1
ES

External SAP Systems Integrator

Provides S/4HANA conversion expertise, configuration, development, migration, and cutover support

Involve: Phase 1
SB

SAP Basis and Infrastructure Lead

Owns environments, conversion tooling, performance, transport management, backup, and technical operations

Involve: Phase 1
EA

Enterprise Architecture and Integration Lead

Controls interfaces with MES, EDI, warehouse, banking, tax, CRM, and other connected systems

Involve: Phase 2
AA

ABAP and Custom Code Lead

Inventories, prioritizes, remediates, and tests custom developments and extensions

Involve: Phase 3
PA

Procurement and Materials Management Lead

Validates purchasing, inventory, supplier, valuation, and goods-movement processes

Involve: Phase 2
SA

Sales and Distribution Lead

Validates order-to-cash, pricing, delivery, shipping, billing, and customer integration processes

Involve: Phase 2
PP

Production Planning and Manufacturing Lead

Validates MRP, BOMs, routings, production orders, capacity planning, and plant execution

Involve: Phase 2
DM

Data Migration and Master Data Owner

Defines data quality rules, ownership, migration mapping, and reconciliation for master and transactional data

Involve: Phase 3
TA

Test and Quality Manager

Defines test governance, entry/exit criteria, defect management, evidence, and release recommendations

Involve: Phase 3
PM

Plant Managers and Business Key Users

Represent site-specific operational needs and approve end-to-end process readiness

Involve: Phase 4
CC

Change, Communications and Training Lead

Manages communications, role impacts, training delivery, and adoption activities

Involve: Phase 4
IS

Information Security, Internal Controls and Compliance Representatives

Validate access controls, segregation of duties, audit trails, financial controls, and security requirements

Involve: Phase 3
WC

Works Council or Employee Representatives, where applicable

Review affected roles, working practices, and employee-impacting changes

Involve: Phase 4

Compliance

Required 4

Comply with GDPR for employee, customer, supplier and contact data migrated or used in test environments, including lawful processing, data minimization, access control, retention, breach handling and masking of non-production data.

Data Protection Officer, Data Migration Lead and Information Security Lead Weeks 2–52
Required
Rule from the compliance library
GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation)(EU 2016/679)
  • Legal basis for every processing of personal data (consent, contract, legal obligation, legitimate interest)
  • Complete record of processing activities (Art. 30) for all processes
  • Data Processing Agreements (DPA) with all sub-processors
  • Data Protection Impact Assessment (DPIA) for high-risk processing
  • Technical and organisational measures (TOM) documented

If breached: Fines up to €20 million or 4% of global annual revenue, whichever is higher. Plus civil damages claims by affected individuals.

Evidence

No evidence yet. In PathHub you attach evidence to each obligation, e.g. minutes, a certificate or a link to the document, and export everything as a PDF evidence report.

File Link Note

Validate FI/CO configuration, opening balances, audit trails, period controls, statutory reports, tax/VAT processing and records retention against applicable local accounting, tax and financial-reporting laws.

CFO, Finance Transformation Lead and Tax/Compliance Representatives Weeks 9–52
Required
Rule from the compliance library

There is no matching rule in the library for this obligation. In PathHub you can link a rule from the library if needed.

Evidence

No evidence yet. In PathHub you attach evidence to each obligation, e.g. minutes, a certificate or a link to the document, and export everything as a PDF evidence report.

File Link Note

Confirm SAP licensing, S/4HANA subscription or maintenance rights, third-party add-on compatibility, interface-provider contracts and EDI partner obligations before production conversion.

CIO, Procurement Lead, SAP Licensing Owner and Enterprise Architecture Lead Weeks 1–27
Required
Rule from the compliance library

There is no matching rule in the library for this obligation. In PathHub you can link a rule from the library if needed.

Evidence

No evidence yet. In PathHub you attach evidence to each obligation, e.g. minutes, a certificate or a link to the document, and export everything as a PDF evidence report.

File Link Note

Complete formal change-impact consultation with the Works Council or employee representatives where required, covering affected roles, working practices, monitoring and training implications.

HR Lead, Change and Training Lead and Works Council Liaison Weeks 16–41
Required
Rule from the compliance library

There is no matching rule in the library for this obligation. In PathHub you can link a rule from the library if needed.

Evidence

No evidence yet. In PathHub you attach evidence to each obligation, e.g. minutes, a certificate or a link to the document, and export everything as a PDF evidence report.

File Link Note
Important 3

Maintain documented internal controls over financial postings, master-data changes, approvals, payment processes, privileged access and segregation of duties, with evidence suitable for internal and external audit.

CFO, Internal Controls Representative and SAP Security Lead Weeks 19–52
Important
Rule from the compliance library

There is no matching rule in the library for this obligation. In PathHub you can link a rule from the library if needed.

Evidence

No evidence yet. In PathHub you attach evidence to each obligation, e.g. minutes, a certificate or a link to the document, and export everything as a PDF evidence report.

File Link Note

Apply the organization’s information-security policy and relevant ISO 27001-aligned controls, including secure configuration, vulnerability management, encryption, logging, backup/restore, incident response and access recertification.

CIO, Information Security Lead and Basis Lead Weeks 3–52
Important
Rule from the compliance library
ISO 27001 (Information Security)(ISO 27001:2022)
  • Information security management system (ISMS) defined
  • Risk assessment and treatment documented
  • Statement of Applicability (SoA) with Annex A controls
  • Internal audit and management review annually

If breached: Voluntary standard but de facto mandatory for enterprise/government clients. Loss terminates business relationships.

Evidence

No evidence yet. In PathHub you attach evidence to each obligation, e.g. minutes, a certificate or a link to the document, and export everything as a PDF evidence report.

File Link Note

Maintain documented backup, disaster-recovery, rollback and business-continuity procedures, and demonstrate recovery and fallback capability before the fiscal-year go-live.

Basis and Infrastructure Lead, IT Service Owner and Program Manager Weeks 19–47
Important
Rule from the compliance library

There is no matching rule in the library for this obligation. In PathHub you can link a rule from the library if needed.

Evidence

No evidence yet. In PathHub you attach evidence to each obligation, e.g. minutes, a certificate or a link to the document, and export everything as a PDF evidence report.

File Link Note

Milestones

  1. Week 3

    Approved program charter, governance structure, RACI matrix, integrated delivery plan and confirmed core project team

    Depends on: Program mobilization and governance
  2. Week 8

    Approved ECC baseline, application and interface inventory, data-object inventory and signed conversion scope

    Depends on: Current-state assessment and scope confirmation
  3. Week 10

    Approved S/4HANA readiness report, prioritized remediation backlog and technical conversion prerequisites

    Depends on: S/4HANA readiness and technical assessment
  4. Week 16

    Signed S/4HANA solution blueprint with approved process design, deviations, reporting model, roles and integration principles

    Depends on: Fit-to-standard and solution design
  5. Week 18

    Approved custom-code remediation backlog with completed priority fixes, retired objects, ATC clearance and unit-test evidence

    Depends on: Custom code remediation
  6. Week 19

    Approved technical architecture, interface specifications, migration design, data ownership model and reconciliation framework

    Depends on: Architecture, integration and data migration design
  7. Week 26

    Completed migration rehearsal with reconciled results, approved data-quality thresholds and signed migration-object ownership

    Depends on: Data cleansing and migration rehearsals
  8. Week 27

    Configured S/4HANA solution with approved developments, interfaces, reports, workflows, roles and completed module unit-test preparation

    Depends on: S/4HANA configuration and development
  9. Week 35

    Completed integration and end-to-end test cycle with agreed defect thresholds, performance evidence and approval to enter UAT

    Depends on: System integration and end-to-end testing
  10. Week 41

    Signed UAT acceptance by FI/CO, MM, SD, PP and plant process owners with approved defect disposition

    Depends on: User acceptance and business validation
  11. Week 41

    Approved training curriculum, trained key-user network, published communications and documented business-readiness assessment

    Depends on: Training and change readiness
  12. Week 45

    Approved cutover runbook and successful timed go-live rehearsal meeting conversion, validation and fallback criteria

    Depends on: Cutover planning and go-live rehearsal
  13. Week 47

    S/4HANA live at the start of the fiscal year with reconciled opening balances, active interfaces and formal go-live approval

    Depends on: Final migration and fiscal-year go-live
  14. Week 52

    Stable first-period operations, completed financial reconciliation, accepted performance levels and formal transition to business-as-usual support

    Depends on: Hypercare and stabilization

How this plan was created

This plan was created by PathHub AI from a single description: “Move from SAP ECC to SAP S/4HANA (brownfield conversion) in a manufacturing company with 900 employees, modules FI/CO, MM, SD and PP, including clean-up of custom code, test cycles, training and hypercare. Go-live at the start of the fiscal year.” Without company context. With your departments, approval processes and compliance requirements it becomes much more precise.

Related documents

The requirements specification usually comes before the project plan. Here is the matching example with Word download.

Obligations

Obligations with lead time: what many think of too late

These obligations are typically triggered by an SAP S/4HANA implementation (example: Germany). PathHub AI schedules them with lead time, warns when the schedule is too tight and shows the rule with its criteria under “Rule & evidence”, which you tick off and back with evidence. Not legal advice.

Update the record of processing activities and check whether a data protection impact assessment is needed (GDPR Art. 30, 35)
Required 2–4 weeks before go-liveguide value
Rule & evidence

Why: The new system processes personal data of customers or employees.

Rule from the compliance library
GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation)
Criteria
  • Legal basis for every processing of personal data (consent, contract, legal obligation, legitimate interest)
  • Complete record of processing activities (Art. 30) for all processes
  • Data Processing Agreements (DPA) with all sub-processors
  • Data Protection Impact Assessment (DPIA) for high-risk processing
  • Technical and organisational measures (TOM) documented

If breached: Fines up to €20 million or 4% of global annual revenue, whichever is higher. Plus civil damages claims by affected individuals.

Evidence: In PathHub you tick off the criteria and attach evidence to each item as a file, link or note. Everything exports as a PDF evidence report.
Sign a data processing agreement with the provider (GDPR Art. 28)
Required 2–6 weeks before go-livestatutory
Rule & evidence

Why: The provider processes personal data on your behalf (cloud, maintenance, support).

Legal basis: GDPR Art. 28: the contract must be in place before processing starts, including tests with real data or data migration.

Rule from the compliance library
Cloud Contract Law
Criteria
  • Data Processing Agreement (DPA) with cloud provider
  • SLA with availability, RPO, RTO
  • Exit and portability clause
  • Data localisation and transfer mechanism (SCC / adequacy)

If breached: Civil claims for data loss; recourse depends on contract. GDPR fines for non-compliance.

Evidence: In PathHub you tick off the criteria and attach evidence to each item as a file, link or note. Everything exports as a PDF evidence report.
Involve the works council and conclude a works agreement on the system (Sec. 87(1) No. 6 BetrVG)
Important 6–12 weeks before go-liveguide value
Rule & evidence

Why: Almost any software logs user actions and is therefore suitable for monitoring performance or behaviour.

Applies: only if a works council exists

Legal basis: Sec. 87(1) No. 6 Works Constitution Act: co-determination for technical systems suitable for monitoring behaviour or performance; suitability is enough. Without agreement the system must not be introduced.

Rule from the compliance library
Works Constitution Act (BetrVG)
Criteria
  • Enable works council election from 5 eligible employees upward
  • Co-determination on working time, monitoring systems, IT rollouts (§87)
  • Hearing before every dismissal (§102): written with reasons
  • Balance-of-interests and social plan on operational changes (§111)

If breached: Dismissals without works council hearing are void. Administrative fines up to €10,000 per violation. Criminal liability (§119) for obstructing the works council up to 1 year imprisonment.

Evidence: In PathHub you tick off the criteria and attach evidence to each item as a file, link or note. Everything exports as a PDF evidence report.
Ensure GoBD process documentation and audit-proof archiving, test e-invoicing
Important 4–8 weeks before go-liveguide value
Rule & evidence

Why: Tax-relevant data must be retained completely, unalterably and auditably, also after the system change.

Applies: if the system processes accounting or tax-relevant data (ERP, invoices, POS)

Rule from the compliance library
GoBD and e-invoicing
Criteria
  • Process documentation for all tax-relevant systems and procedures
  • Complete and unalterable records, changes are logged
  • Retention of tax-relevant documents for the statutory period (generally 8 or 10 years)
  • Data access for tax audits possible (Sec. 147(6) German Fiscal Code)
  • Receipt of structured e-invoices (XRechnung, ZUGFeRD) since 1 Jan 2025
  • Issuing e-invoices to domestic businesses: from 2027 for prior-year turnover above EUR 800,000, from 2028 generally for all (exceptions incl. small-amount invoices, small businesses)

If breached: Formal defects can lead to the bookkeeping being rejected and the tax base being estimated (Sec. 162 German Fiscal Code); refusing data access can trigger a delay penalty (Sec. 146(2c)).

Evidence: In PathHub you tick off the criteria and attach evidence to each item as a file, link or note. Everything exports as a PDF evidence report.
All typical initiatives and their obligations: planning internal projects

Frequently asked questions

How long does an SAP S/4HANA implementation take?
In the example plan, an SAP S/4HANA implementation takes 52 weeks in 14 phases, of which 7 phases partly run in parallel. The actual duration depends on company size, starting point and available resources, with your company context PathHub adjusts the schedule accordingly.
What does an SAP S/4HANA implementation cost?
The example plan estimates about €3,696,000, split into 25 budget line items with quantity and unit price. The largest items are SAP Implementation and Custom Code Remediation, Data Migration, Integration and Testing. This is an AI estimate as a starting point, not a quote.
What are the risks of an SAP S/4HANA implementation?
The plan lists 12 risks with countermeasures. Rated highest: Fiscal-Year Cutover and Opening-Balance Failure; Critical Custom-Code Incompatibility; Master-Data and Migration-Reconciliation Errors.
Who needs to be involved in an SAP S/4HANA implementation?
Among others, the plan includes these people: Executive Sponsor / Steering Committee, CIO or Head of IT, CFO and Finance Transformation Lead, SAP Program Director / Program Manager, External SAP Systems Integrator, SAP Basis and Infrastructure Lead. For each role it states why and from when to involve them.
Can I adapt the plan to my company?
Yes. Open the plan in PathHub without signing up, adjust phases and tasks or describe your own initiative: with company context (departments, approval processes, works council, compliance requirements) every further plan gets more precise.

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