1:35 PM Project Management Office Meeting
Who Gets to Go First?

With the lights dimmed, the senior leaders of OneSAP look at a screen where they see projected two potential rollout strategies for OneSAP.

If the project stays on schedule, it will take about nine months to build the OneSAP system, according to the blueprint. Then Celanese will start deployment in the fourth quarter of 2003, and the rollout will run through the second quarter of 2004. The subject of this meeting is basically, who draws the short straw? The leaders are discussing two options.

Acetate, one of Celanese’s five divisions, is planned for later in the rollout because it has one of the newest versions of SAP already running within Celanese. Someone suggests moving Acetate to the front, because its version and the new OneSAP are so close, it will be less difficult for those employees to adjust. But Perroni interjects, "We still have major change management issues with Acetate. As late as last week we were dealing with the question from them, Why are we in this?"

Someone else suggests, why not move Celanese’s new acquisition, Clariant, to the front of the line? The acquisition was so recent that no one is sure what version of SAP Clariant uses. "Version 4.5b-ish?" Perroni theorizes. But the sooner Celanese gets Clariant on OneSAP, the sooner Celanese stops paying Clariant’s monthly six-figure support fee (a figure that Celanese says was later reduced). Still, someone else offers, how will it play if we acquire this company and foist this pain on these people right away? Not well, seems to be the consensus.

Perroni offers a new option: Combine all of the small rollouts, leaving plastics from Ticona and chemicals (roughly 80 percent of the total system) for later. That eliminates lots of risk early while still giving the team rollout experience it can apply to the big dogs later. "We could do Mexico, Singapore...," Perroni says.

Peters is interested: "If you think we could do it that way, that becomes very attractive."

After more brainstorming, this new third option?small sites first?is called "doable" and Peters is jazzed, calling it "clever" and asks, "How reasonable is it to gain a month next year so we can start these small sites in August?"

For the most part, a three-year project moves like one of those revolving rooftop restaurants. You don’t feel the progress, but now and again when you look up, you’re in a different place. But here, for a second, you could feel the motion. You didn’t need to look up to know OneSAP was in a different place now.