But this is only true when organizations adopt a holistic approach to change not just their technological infrastructure, but to shift mindsets as well. When leaders approach transformation as a one-and-done change model, things can get challenging. Research from McKinsey shows that a fifth of the transformation’s value is typically lost after technical implementation and that change programs often fail due to employee resistance. There is often a disconnect between the C-suite and employees (the end users) when it comes to implementing change at such a large scale. That’s because real change requires involvement, complicity, and adapting the right mindset on the part of the end users. Getting that buy-in is the main challenge of organizational change management (OCM), a framework for getting people and technological change to align – and its importance cannot be overstated.

Unfortunately, OCM remains a challenge for many enterprises who often lack either the resources, time, or even foresight to invest in training and education for their end users. This is why SAP recently teamed up with strategic partner Schaeffler, a leading global supplier to the automotive and industrial sectors, to explore how digital tools can better support organizational change managers and consultants within the context of an SAP transformation project. Taking part in a week-long SAP Fiori Makers boot camp, they explored how to better bring people to the forefront of digital transformation.

One week to give it their all

The SAP Fiori Makers Boot Camp is designed to help product stakeholders understand the basics of the design-led development process, identify their end users’ challenges, design a clickable prototype for the use case, and implement a proof of concept on the SAP Business Technology Platform. All this is done within one week with the goal of giving participants a vision of what is possible to develop, or even to set the groundwork for a future roadmap.

“The real value of the boot camp is the pure focus that’s achieved within that short timeframe”, says Andreas Spahn, Principal Business Innovation Architect for SAP Customer Success. Spahn heads the innovation stream of the strategic partnership between SAP and Schaeffler and immediately recognized the opportunity of bringing together Schaeffler’s digitalization experts and SAP designers and developers into one room. “These are five intensive days where all eyes are on one problem. This allows us to boost productivity and avoid the switching costs of multitasking. So it’s really a valuable experience not just for this solution, but as a design methodology to share with our strategic partners and customers,” says Spahn.

The design-led development process used in the SAP Fiori Makers boot camp

The SAP Fiori Makers team is made up of UX designers and developers from SAP. They were joined by change management consultants and managers from both SAP and Schaeffler. To kick things off, the participants were given a condensed introduction into SAP’s design-led development process. The participants were then split up into 3 teams to represent the most important use cases that would enable SAP consultants to better plan, manage, and measure people-related change strategies. These were:

1. A web-based stakeholder analysis application for change management consultants
2. A web-based change impact analysis application for change management consultants
3. A native dashboard application for iPads to provide managers an overview of change management projects

Each team then got to work identifying the appropriate personas and mapping their user journeys using SAP Scenes to better visualize pain points to be solved. From there, the first lo-fi mockups were created and refined with the end users to arrive at the design of the hi-fi mockups, which would then be thoroughly tested by the end users.

Putting users at the center of technology

User testing and user research are essential components of any new design coming from SAP. Our goal is to build products people love, and to do this, we must be able to deeply empathize with our users’ needs.

“As a UX Designer, my role in the boot camp was to guide the participants through the design-led development process,” explains Verena Hubing, User Experience Designer at SAP. “This means we first interviewed the end users on their pain points and their needs. Understanding the problems or challenges they face in their daily work informs how we build any future apps.”

When it came to challenges and expectations, the change managers and consultants were clear on the need to reduce the manual effort of tracking data on Microsoft Excel sheets and slides, which was both time-consuming and highly error-prone. They also complained about the high cognitive effort to understand the different, sometimes overlapping deadlines and timelines. Most also commented on their need to present real-time status updates on change projects to their leadership teams in a simple yet data-rich visual way.

Based on the insights gathered in the interviews, the three teams designed the hi-fi mockups and prototypes using UI components from the SAP design system. Thanks to the robust component library, the designers were easily able to ensure that the applications were consistent and accessible. They could also easily give the applications a customized branded theme to resonate with the Schaeffler brand, while still maintaining the familiar look and feel of an SAP Fiori application. Most importantly, the components library freed up time for the team to focus on logical flows and customer requirements. “Without the design system, I don’t think we would have been able to deliver these strong results in just a few days,” says Christina Salwitzek, User Experience Designer at SAP. Once the prototypes were finished, the designers facilitated four 45-minute validation sessions with three end users from Schaeffler and one from SAP, who were also involved throughout the entire design process.

Collaborating to create value

With the final day of the boot camp coming to a close, the first functional software artefacts were user-tested and ready to be handed over to development. Finding themselves between elation and exhaustion, the participants praised the dynamic between colleagues and how they managed to work well together and have fun while also creating a valuable digital solution.

Amongst some of the initial findings, the applications were estimated to enhance decision-making by providing real-time visibility into potential impacts of change projects and improving efficiency by providing automated impact assessments. They were also likely to increase collaboration through centralized change documentation and reduce the cognitive load for change managers and consultants. “I was really impressed by how good the designers at SAP are and how they managed to translate all our wild thoughts into a structured and creative digital solution,” says Susanne Gottschalk.

Like with any technology, the key to digitalizing organizational change management lies in understanding the people who will use it. “It’s all about people’s needs,” says Franziska Gerner, Head of Digital Competencies at Schaeffler. “Every design should start with the user in mind.”