Hyperion Planning Implementation Team Makeup

For a typical Hyperion Planning project (3-4 months) I believe the following resources are sufficient. This is assuming the etl duties are owned by the customer. This is often not the case and the
I believe most Hyperion Planning projects can be implemented with a team consisting of the following makeup:

customer: 4 resources
#1 part time project manager
#2 subject matter expert business
#3 subject matter expert business
#4 tech / infr resource
#5 erp system resource (in charge of extracting necessary data)

Now on the consulting side (consulting team) this would be my breakdown if I had a choice (3 necessary, 4 optional):

#1-part time project manager (not the customer) that is there during the presales phase. This resource is onsite full time in the beginning and then tapers off to 8-12 hours a week. They don't have to be an expert on Hyperion Planning but this person should know the basics. The goal of this person is to be MR Change Control (or MS). On a recent project, my "part time project manager" played this role to such a tee, the meer mention of his name would stop all discussions of new functionality that was deemed essential but not discovered during the design phase


#2 -planning architect
It's good to have someone that's performed at least 5 Hyperion Planning implementations. But if this person is not a hard core essbase guy then you'd better have a ringer as your #3.

#3 essbase architect
-essbase architect. I'd much rather have someone that knows essbase hard core than a 2nd chair in planning in this role.

#4 (optional) junior resource
-someone to build web forms and reports

Here's a key point. The more seasoned and senior your resources, the fewer bodies you'll need. I once heard about a project where recruiters said they needed 14 hyperion planning resources. I ended up passing because they were a little stingy on the rate and something didn't seem right. It turns out that the project was shutdown after a few months. I'm not sure the scope of the project but there are only so many consultants that can work on a planning system at the same time. There's only 1 outline per plan type and only 1 person can make changes to the hierarchies at any point in time. I just can't see how to coordinate that many consultants with business requirements that always change on the fly.

In choosing your resources for your project team take a little time to read the resumes of the actual worker bees that will be showing up. Many times the tech guru that was present during the dog and pony show is not available when the project actually gets started.

Also, when choosing candidates, you're much better off getting a seasoned essbase developer (4.x, 5.x 6.5, or even 7.x) on the team than you are having 3 additional planning resources or even requiring system 9 experience. (have you guessed I'm an essbase guy. Yes, I'm proficient in 9.3.1 p1 but as stated, I'll take a real essbase developer over someone that's implemented planning 9 times. I can teach planning to an essbase guy in under a day but you can't teach essbase in 1 day) System 9 experience on essbase doesn't really require too many additional skills. I'll write about this later. "what you need to know about essbase to retool up to system 9".

In closing, there are too many Hyperion Planning projects going south out there. Why are they having problems? Because their database size is out of this world. In most every case, having a real essbase developer on the team (the gruff type that tells you when you are being stupid) could have provided insight as to the feasibility of the design months before go live. Remember the underlying database is essbase. All essbases rules of thumb apply (block size, database explosion, calc times, etc.). By having a hard core essbase developer on site, you likely could have even changed direction (scope, functionality) to hit the live date. Given the fact that there is currently a resource shorttage of system 9 folks out there, if I were a hiring manager, I'd start paying more attention to all those resumes of essbase developers that do not have system 9 experience and throw them on my key Hyperion Planning projects.

just a thought.

hj