Project teams need all players, even the scruffy ones

Join Ed and Thomas in this whirlwind episode that covers a wide range of great news and topics in the wide world of enterprise software. They are also joined by Craig Cmehil to discuss his new team and role within SAP.

Dearest eGheads, we need your show ideas. If you have questions, suggestions, or topic ideas for future episodes, give us a shout here. Enjoy!

Running Time: 70 minutes

Talking Points

1. 00:15 – Random chit chat
2. 02:10 – Apple iPad disappointment
3. 11:56 – Fellow eGeek Craig Cmehil talks about his new position
4. 25:30 – Continuing discussion on last week’s episode on Project Roles and followup SDN blog post by Vijay Vijayasankar
5. 33:13 – Dice.com salary survey and the lucrativeness of ABAP and SOA
6. 39:48 – Oracle Completes Acquisition of Sun
   • Sunset: The Oracle Acquisition Q&A – by Stephen O’Grady
   • Oracle and Sun – Quick Analysis by Michael Coté
   • Oracle & Sun Overview and FAQ on Oracle.com
   • OpenOffice.org Contributors Chart on ohloh.com
   • Oracle sues Rimini Street
7. 44:51 – SAP NetWeaver Customer Call Series
8. 47:02 – What’s new in SAP NetWeaver Composition Environment 7.2?
9. 54:32 – Thomas clarifies some NetWeaver ABAP 7.02 details and discusses his sessions for SAP Inside Track Bonn 2010 and Mastering SAP Technologies
10. 60:23 – Wrap up
    • Tweet from @zeomar – “Watching the excellent ‘ABAP UI Flexibility’ series on @enterprisegeeks http://tinyurl.com/yza7yo4 -> @thomas_jung you are my hero!”
    • eGhead Matt Harding creates the EnterpriseGeeks Theme Song
    • You can check out other songs by Matt Harding on his MySpace page
    • Adobe, we need a license to Soundbooth CS4

Are BPX and Solution Architect Roles a Myth?

Listen in with your Enterprise Geeks friends in this content gold episode where they host a roundtable discussion regarding IT Project Roles. This week, hosts Thomas and Ed are joined with experts and fellow eGheads Jon Reed of JonERP.com and Leonardo De Araujo of Beyond Technologies. The discussion aims to clarify traditional Functional and Technical roles as well as the newcomer roles of BPX and Solution Architect.

This episode was originally planned to cover both the topics of the SAP Community Developer License and the IT Project Roles roundtable. Both sessions had so much great content, we wanted to make them both available separately in their entirety. Because of this decision, we have split this episode into two separate parts. You can check out the first part of this episode here.

Dearest eGheads, we need your show ideas. If you have questions, suggestions, or topic ideas for future episodes, give us a shout here. Enjoy!

Running Time: 71 minutes

Talking Points

1. 00:10 – Segway into the Roundtable
2. 00:45 – IT Project Roles Roundtable Discusssion
   • 04:21 (Ed) Setting up the stage
   • 06:45 (Jon) Is BPX a new role or a refinement of existing roles?
   • 12:33 (Leo) Clearing up the “Functional” role?
   • 16:05 (Jon) Origins of the term BPX
   • 19:46 (Tom) Does SAP use BPX in their own environment?
   • 24:55 (Ed) The importance of a business process champion
   • 26:53 (Ed) The parallels of the BPX and the Solution Architect
   • 28:25 (Tom) Why you need to value technical skills and technical people
   • 31:25 (Leo & Jon) Where functionals and technicals fit in the hierarchy and why there is a growing need for more senior roles like BPX and Solution Architect
   • 37:20 (Ed) Where do Project Managers fit into the picture?
   • 41:10 (Thomas) All projects are not created equal
   • 43:05 (Leo) The Y Path
   • 46:27 (Jon) Defining and choosing meaningful career paths
   • 48:35 (Ed & Jon) Enterprise Architect vs. Solution Architect
   • 51:55 (Thomas) Standardization vs. Customization
   • 54:53 (Leo) Don’t forget about Change Management
   • 56:42 Final thoughts from the crew
3. 61:18 – Wrap up with Apple Tablet fever and Football fanatics

I had the opportunity to sit down and interview Marilyn Pratt and Twan van den Broek about this exciting event and how in the future we might be able to bring the Hacker Night and Process Slam closer together.

Running Time: 12 minutes

Polestar - Prepare to Qualify

Listen to this fun episode as hosts Ed Herrmann & Thomas Jung just shoot the breeze on a mix of topics ranging from hot SAP issues to laid back, general geekiness. They also throw down a polestar challenge to all of the fellow eGheads.

If you have questions, suggestions, or topic ideas for future episodes, give us a shout here. Enjoy!

Running Time: 56 minutes

Talking Points

1. Geeks vs. Nerds
2. Comments discussion on last week’s podcast
   • Business Process Expert is to Functional Configurer same as Solution Architect is to Code Monkey
   • Where do these roles fit into an Enterprise project team structure?
   • The journey begins for the agile waterfall
3. Welcome New SAP Mentors
4. SAP Launches Online Resource for Academic Community
5. SAP on Twitter – Big Pimpin’?
6. Netweaver BI is back to the future with BW
7. Innocentive Polestar Challenge
8. Check out my new eGeek laptop skin from skinit
9. Brief talk about SAP Sapphire 2009?
10. eGhead of the month award goes to Abesh for his cool egeek widgets
11. New eGeek swag available
12. Welcome New SAP Mentors – redux
13. Geeks getting excited about Watchmen
14. SAP sustainability
15. Atlassian‘s Jeffrey Walker kicks cancer in the ass

Can SAP leverage their newfound transparency or will it just come back to haunt them?

The hits just keep on coming! This week we pulled in another great guest, Jon Reed. Jon is a fellow SAP mentor and popular blogger from JonERP.com. Listen in to hear his great perspectives on the current and upcoming SAP job market trends, as well as some more thoughts on the future of SAP certifications.

If you have questions, suggestions, or topic ideas for future episodes, give us a shout here. Enjoy!

Running Time: 65 minutes

Talking Points

1. Jon Reed intro
   • JonERP.com
   • SAP Community Blog
   • Feeding the SAP Ecosytem
   • Follow JonERP on twitter
   • Being an SAP Mentor
2. Dennis Howlett – SAP Mentors will crush it for SAP
3. Trends of SAP Job Skills market and the roles of Business Process Experts and Solution Architects
4. What is the best project team structure to leverage these “new” roles?
5. Are Solution Architects the Chief of the Surgical Development Team?
6. SAP Mentor Webinar on SAP Certifications and the continuing controversy
   • What was it all about?
   • Transparency can be very helpful, but it can also be a bitch
   • Job postings requiring certifications are still very low
   • Can a multiple choice test accurately measure leadership, experience, and reputation?
   • The answer may be the integration of complimentary programs like ASUG EDGE
   • Could Certifications utilize an online college course format in a group environment?
7. Is there an increase of jobs allowing telecommuting and remote work in a tough economy?
8. Random thoughts on the Kindle 2
   • Help us request Next Generation ABAP by Thomas Jung and Rich Heilman for the Kindle
   • What would your first book on the Kindle be? Let us know in the comments.
   • Special text to speech reading from the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.