Over 9000 professionals have SAP PI In Their LinkedIn Profile

SAP PI is a key integration technology used to connect SuccessFactors Talent Solutions with SAP ERP HCM. There are thousands of SAP PI installations in the world. I was wondering about how many professionals have SAP PI in their LinkedIn Profile. It is 9283. That gives me a rough idea about the level of support available for customers around the world.

It is nice to know that some of these professionals have started identifying themselves as SAP SuccessFactors integration experts. I encourage you to do so if you have done an integration. The demand for such professionals within customer and partner organizations is very high. Even SAP and SuccessFactors professional services teams might be interested in your services.

I also recommend that you get formally trained  in Dell Boomi integration middleware technology. Someone with SAP PI and Boomi skills is going to be in demand for the next several years within the SAP SuccessFactors customer community..

Thinking Fast And Slow

I have been reading the book Thinking Fast And Slow  by Daniel Kahneman for a while now. While it is a thought provoking book, it is not an easy read. I believe that the book helps you identify how people think and identify those who are more likely to become successful at work and life and people who are less likely to succeed. A useful skill to have, I think.

In the video below, Charlie Rose talks to Mr. Kahneman. The conversation makes it easy to understand the concepts in the book.

Technology Advances Will Radically Change Truck Drivers' Jobs

A few days back I wrote a post saying that there are over 200,000 professionals who identify themselves as SAP HR professionals. Several colleagues responded saying that there is a big disruption coming for all these colleagues and they need to learn how to apply their skills in the new world of cloud HR powered by SuccessFactors.

If you think this is a hard transition, I want to point you to another area where the transition is going to be harder. There are over 5.7 million truck drivers in the US. In the next two decades their job are going to be systematically eliminated or radically changed by self-driving truck technology. This is not science fiction. Mining companies in Australia have already deployed self driving trucks and it is a matter of time before this technology is deployed to all commercial trucks. Technology to remotely drive these trucks is also not unthinkable. Compared to the disruption that awaits commercial truck drives, the disruption faced by enterprise software professionals looks like a cake walk.

Picture from WSJ.com

SAP SuccessFactors Integration Single Sign-On Works Both Ways

SAP America is an SAP-SuccessFactors Hybrid customer. We use SAP ERP HCM for employee administration, compensation and payroll and SuccessFactors for talent management needs including Goals Management, Performance Management and Social Collaboration.

Today I got an email from the compensation team with an update to my compensation. My compensation information is calculated in SAP Compensation and displayed as part of my employee profile in SuccessFactors. When I look for detailed compensation information, such as stock option plans, SuccessFactors points me to the Employee Rewards page, which is handled by SAP and connected to stock option plan systems, employee stock purchase systems and share matching plan systems. When I switch back and forth between these systems, I do not think or care about where it is hosted. It may be hosted in the cloud by SuccessFactors or it may be hosted inside the SAP firewalls. The experience of an employee is seamless. The SAP and SuccessFactors integration teams have done a good job.

This is something I have mentioned to customers many times during my presentations and conversations. It is good to see it at work within SAP and SuccessFactors. The document that explains how to do this is the SAP SuccessFactors Single Sign On Cook Book. You can find the document in Service Market Place. I also posted the document to the partner exchange Jam group. if you are a partner and need access, please contact my colleague Bryan. Bryan dot hart at sap dot com.

Thinking In Pictures

Temple Grandin, is a gifted animal scientist who has designed one-third of all the livestock-handling facilities in the United States. She also lectures widely on autism--because Temple Grandin is autistic. She thinks, feels, and experiences the world in ways that are incomprehensible to the rest of us. I believe we can learn from and adopt some of her approaches, even if we cannot think like her in pictures.

Thinking in pictures and using pictures to convey information leads to innovative and simpler design of systems. I have used this approach for a while now with significant success.

Here is a TED talk where she talks about thinking in pictures.


After I wrote this short post my colleague Mark Finnern asked me about some situations where thinking In Pictures helped me at work. Here are the examples.

Thinking In Pictures for Solution Architecture
I draw a picture and encourage colleagues and customers to visualize a solutions rather than show PowerPoint slides to them. This approach significantly reduced the time taken to make a purchasing decision. http://productdesignjournal.blogspot.com/2013/04/design-thinking-for-sap-successfactors.html

Conversation Using Pictures for Training
I also used a picture based approach for training purposes. http://productdesignjournal.blogspot.com/2013/02/design-thinking-for-training-content.html

Thinking In Pictures for Innovation
I have written more about this and other concepts in the book "Look and Flow". http://www.amazon.com/Look-Flow-ebook/dp/B0084IK1F4