50 Lies We Tell Ourselves on SAP Projects
Standard, Streamlined, On Time, and Other Fantasies
“It’ll be a clean implementation.”
Sure. And I’m the SAP Whisperer.
I woke up from a nightmare about an SAP implementation.
Not a metaphor. A full-blown, 3 AM, sweat-soaked flashback to scope creep, phantom data, and the peculiar sound of a printer screaming in Unicode.
While rummaging through the rubble of that memory, I started jotting down the lies. Not the malicious kind—but the helpful little fictions we tell ourselves to get through enterprise software hell with some dignity intact.
Not because we’re fools. Because hope is a project requirement, and denial is sometimes the only viable project plan.
So, with love and PTSD, here are:
The Lies (1–50)
This will be a standard implementation.
We’ll just lift and shift.
Let’s configure, not customize.
The business will align.
We’ll avoid scope creep.
Data migration won’t be an issue.
UAT will catch everything.
Training will be quick.
End-users will adapt.
There’s no need for change management.
The SME is available.
That legacy system is well documented.
The interfaces are simple.
We know all the requirements.
Integration testing won’t take long.
We won’t need another extension.
The vendor has done this before.
The offshore team is ramped up.
The sandbox is stable.
Basis is available after hours.
We’ll clean the data before migration.
Master data won’t be a problem.
Custom code will be minimal.
Our reporting needs are simple.
Fiori will solve that.
No need for a parallel run.
Everyone understands the workflows.
Security roles are ready.
We won’t need another round of approvals.
This is the final version of the spec.
There’s only one source of truth.
Users will read the documentation.
Cutover will go smoothly.
We’ll fix that post-Go Live.
Hypercare won’t last long.
This time, Go Live will be quiet.
The steering committee is aligned.
Our consultant knows the industry.
No one will retire mid-project.
We have enough test cases.
Lessons learned will be applied.
We won’t over-engineer it.
The ticket queue is under control.
We won’t need CRs during UAT.
This blueprint is final.
Change requests will be rare.
End-user feedback won’t delay us.
Training materials are complete.
This dashboard is what leadership asked for.
Next time, we’ll do it differently.
A Few Disclaimers (and Apologies)
I’m not an SAP consultant.
I’ve never written ABAP or summoned a report from the underworld of transaction codes. My experience has always been at the edges—post-merger implementation work, integrating systems that orbit SAP’s gravitational pull.
The jokes come from that vantage point: Close enough to smell the ticket queue, far enough not to be inside it.
Still, based on the reaction—over 4,700 views and counting on LinkedIn—it seems the Urban Sombrero was more accurate than I realized. Carry on, friends. I’ll be over here analyzing printer sentiment.
Sidebar of Shame
If you’ve worked on ERP projects, feel free to submit your own lies. We’re aiming for a global list. One hundred and counting.
Some early favorites from the trenches:
“We’ll get all the users off of Excel.”
“We don’t need to document the config.”
“We only need to map ‘As-Is’ to ‘To-Be’ once.”
“We’ll go live and then stabilize.”
“The reports will work fine after the upgrade.”
“AI will handle 70% of post-Go Live calls.”
“The PM will stay until the end.”
“We won’t need a workaround.”
“We’ll sunset the legacy systems immediately.”
“This time will be different.”