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The Sign-Off Table

Lesson 5 of 5

Governance after go-live

7 min

After go-live, the project team shrinks and the process keeps changing: new requirements, SAP releases, organizational changes, audit findings. Without governance, changes arrive one email at a time and nobody sees the whole picture. A process governance forum is a short, regular meeting where process owners make decisions about their processes with the facts in front of them.

What the forum decides

  • Change requests: approve, reject or defer, and prioritize for the next release train.
  • KPIs: review process performance and agree actions when a KPI is off target.
  • Releases and upgrades: approve scope and sign results based on regression reports.
  • Controls and risks: review audit findings, segregation-of-duties exceptions and control failures.
  • Standards: master data rules, naming, the process hierarchy and RACI updates.
  1. Request raisedKey user or department logs a change request against a process in the hierarchy
  2. AssessedKey user and IT estimate effort, impact on other processes and test scope
  3. DecidedProcess owner (or forum for cross-process changes) approves, rejects or defers
  4. Built and testedDelivered in a release train with regression testing
  5. Signed and releasedProcess owner signs results; users informed
The change request path through governance.
The Sign-Off Table · thesignofftable.com/academy/sap-pow-201

Cadence and inputs

ForumCadenceAttendeesInputs
Process forum (per end-to-end process)Every two weeks or monthlyProcess owner, key users, IT leadNew change requests, KPI dashboard, open incidents by category
Cross-process boardMonthlyAll process owners, IT, PMO or service managerChanges affecting several processes, release train scope, upgrade plans
Release sign-offPer release train or upgradeProcess owners, test leadRegression report, open defects, residual risks
Annual reviewYearlyExecutive sponsor, process ownersKPI trends, RACI and hierarchy updates, roadmap

A lightweight governance structure. Small companies can merge the first two.

KPIs that the forum watches

Department metricOne department, low impact: picking lines per hour. The department head manages it.
Department priorityOne department, high impact: billing backlog. The department head acts; the forum watches.
Process health indicatorSeveral departments, low impact: average order changes per order. Review quarterly.
Process KPISeveral departments, high impact: on-time delivery, days sales outstanding, invoice accuracy. The forum reviews every meeting.
Which measures belong on the process owner's agenda.
The Sign-Off Table · thesignofftable.com/academy/sap-pow-201

Process KPIs should come from SAP S/4HANA reporting that has been tested and reconciled, so the forum argues about actions, not numbers. If a KPI goes off target, the forum agrees an owner and an action, such as a training refresh, a master data clean-up or a change request.

A standard agenda

  1. KPI review: process KPIs against target; actions on anything off target.
  2. Incidents and problems: patterns from support tickets by category since the last meeting.
  3. Change requests: decisions on assessed requests; release train scope.
  4. Controls and audit: findings, exceptions, role changes affecting segregation of duties.
  5. Upcoming SAP changes: release information, test plans, sign-offs due.

Keep a decision log: date, decision, reason, owner and follow-up. Six months later, when someone asks why fleet orders skip a particular check, the answer is a line in the log rather than a search through old emails. The log also shows auditors that changes to controls were approved by the accountable owner.

Upgrade decisions

SAP releases and feature packs reach the forum twice: before, to agree scope and test approach, and after testing, to sign results. In Cloud Public Edition the dates are set by SAP, so the forum decides how to prepare, not whether to upgrade. In on-premise and Private Edition, the forum can also weigh timing against business peaks such as Contoso's year-end close.

What would you do?

Six months after go-live, Contoso's order-to-cash forum has 64 open change requests, and its meetings run two hours without decisions. Grace asks the process owner how to fix it. What is the best answer?

Key points
  • A governance forum is a short, regular meeting where process owners decide with facts.
  • It decides on change requests, KPIs, releases, controls and standards.
  • Use a light structure: process forums, a cross-process board, release sign-off and an annual review.
  • Delegate minor changes to key users within written limits.
  • Base KPIs on tested reporting and agree an owner and action when one is off target.

Check your understanding · not graded

Lesson check

  1. 1. What is the main purpose of a process governance forum?

  2. 2. Which changes should reach the forum?

  3. 3. Which is a process KPI the forum should review every meeting?

  4. 4. In Cloud Public Edition, what does the forum decide about SAP upgrades?