This series introduces a maturity model for SAP quality teams responsible for testing releases and ensuring the functionality of critical business processes.  The model outlines “typical” stages organizations fall into based on their testing approach and use of automation. It also highlights how investing in QA capabilities can deliver lasting benefits to the organization. 

The Heroic SAP Testing Team 
Many SAP organizations heavily rely on manual testing to ensure SAP release quality. This approach works well for firms with smaller SAP environments with limited change, and is typified by these attributes: 

• Manual Process Documentation: Functional experts manually define and document workflow and business processes, through written descriptions of processes, screen shots , and basic guidance of typical process variations 

• Collaborative Scoping: Functional and technical experts define the test scope. Since testing every business process for every change is impractical, teams rely on expert business knowledge to prioritize a test plan based on the expected potential impact for each change 

• Manual Execution: Business users perform workflows in QA manually to identify potential defects or issues before cutover 

Why It Breaks Down 
The challenges with this model are well known, yet the approach remains commonplace: 

• Test case execution is constrained to a small pool of users with knowledge of the business and ability to perform business tasks. This creates heavy workloads with little business value 

• Testers must know the business comprehensively as manual testing often requires identifying suitable scenarios and data to match testing requirements 

• Business users often lack the software quality expertise, while the quality team depends on business users for process understanding and requirements 

• Manual scoping leaves blind spots. Technical dependencies and object level risks are difficult at scale with a manual analysis approach. ` 

Ultimately this creates a “hero dependency.”  The work falls on highly skilled individuals making great efforts to get the work done at the expense of other productive business tasks.  The testing often requires a specialized level of knowledge of the business, limiting who can effectively participate in testing activities. And the time available from these individuals for testing is limited given their larger organization responsibilities. 

So, even with heroes leading the charge, testing in this model will suffer from a lack of scalability, opportunity cost to the business, incomplete change impact analysis, and risks from the lack of comprehensive testing coverage. 

What Comes Next 

Model #2 – Adopting Quality Processes 
As organizations grow or face larger projects, the hero approach is no longer viable. Outages, missed defects, and the sheer cost of diverting business experts force a change. 

So, just as standardized business processes improve business operations, testing too can benefit from this process-centric approach. In Part 2, we will explore how adopting quality processes help QA teams move beyond heroics and achieve greater consistency, scalability, and resilience.  

Stay tuned… 

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