SAP-Centric Projects

Instinctively many organizations show a knee-jerk reaction to eliminate SAP from consideration as their core project management system. There are many reasons for that, not the least a bad reputation of SAP-PS or PM not being user friendly or lacking functionality.  

The reality is not quite as simple, though. Fact is that in terms of functionality SAP is not inferior to socalled "best-of-breed" project management systems. The SAP Project System (PS) has the capability to schedule as well as Primavera or MS Project, level resources, and of course provide elaborate cost control. Some of these functions are indeed so awkward that they sometimes may be considered dysfunctional (e.g., you need to navigate into many different transactions, layout changes are everything but intuitive, graphical gantt-chart based screens are somewhat clumsy). On the other hand and ironically, often the reason for such perceived shortcomings is SAP's strength in functionaliy.