Role Purpose
The Senior Manager ensures the team's successful delivery and people outcomes by orchestrating capacity and workload planning, maintaining delivery quality, managing performance and development, supporting hiring and the junior program, and acting as the first line for escalations.
In addition, the role requires senior-level SAP project management expertise to lead and oversee complex SAP implementation or enhancement projects, ensure adherence to methodology, manage risks, support solution quality, and act as a senior advisor to the professional team and stakeholders.
Responsibilities
People & Performance
* Run monthly 1:1s (30-60 minutes) to provide feedback, coaching, and support.
* Track consultant work quality and quantity throughout the year.
* Discuss quarterly/annual performance with the manager; propose development and HR steps.
* Drive annual evaluation sessions for colleagues (as requested by manager).
* Support team members with day-to-day issues (e.g., travel, admin topics, sick leave).
* Maintain awareness of personal circumstances where relevant to planning and support.
* Mentor SAP consultants and act as a senior expert in SAP-related delivery topics.
Capacity, Workload & Resource Planning
* Maintain an accurate view of current workload and consultant capacities.
* Proactively prepare workload planning for upcoming periods.
* Suggest candidates for specific staffing requests and propose team adjustments (extend/narrow).
* Support resource planning (and independently use the planning tool once available).
* Support SAP project resource planning (roles, profiles, demand forecasting).
Delivery Quality & Estimation
* Review and approve man-day estimations prepared by the team.
* Ensure proposal quality and appropriate delegation of subtasks.
* Manage smaller delivery/professional escalations independently; manage smaller HR-related escalations as needed.
* Collaborate with manager and HR on bigger or repeated escalations.
* Lead SAP project delivery from initiation to closure, including scope, timeline, budget, and quality control.
* Ensure compliance with SAP Activate or relevant project methodology.
* Drive issue and risk management for SAP workstreams.
* Support functional/technical design reviews and solution quality assurance.
Hiring, Onboarding & Junior Program
* Participate in professional interviews and the hiring process.
* Define the number and skillset of juniors to hire; contribute to training/mentoring plans.
* Arrange/support a junior program in coordination with trainers/mentors.
* Evaluate SAP candidate profiles during hiring (functional/technical fit, consulting skills).
Communication, Governance & Reporting
* Cascade organizational messages to the team as requested by management.
* Ensure proper time reporting at least on a monthly basis.
* Provide regular news and status updates to the manager on team members and deliveries.
* Collaborate with other functional areas and professional teams to remove blockers and align practices.
* Provide expert-level SAP project reporting (milestones, risks, dependencies).
Planning & Budget Support
* Support the manager in yearly budget planning (inputs on capacity, roles/levels, and development plans).
* Provide input for SAP project budgeting, cost forecasting, and effort planning.
Qualifications
General Requirements
* Bachelor's degree (or equivalent experience) in a relevant field.
* 5+ years of relevant professional experience; 2+ years in team/line management preferred.
* Proven capacity/resource planning and estimation experience.
* Demonstrated delivery/governance and quality management experience.
* Solid record in performance management and coaching.
* Confident stakeholder and escalation management.
* Tooling familiarity: time reporting, capacity planning, project tracking (e.g., Jira, Azure DevOps), and office productivity tools.
* Language: German (fluent) ; English (fluent)
Senior SAP Project Manager Requirements
* 7-10+ years of SAP project management experience (implementation, rollout, upgrade, or transformation projects).
* Demonstrated success leading full-cycle SAP ERP or S/4HANA projects .
* Strong understanding of SAP modules, integration points, and cross-functional processes.
* Hands-on experience with SAP Activate, ASAP, or equivalent methodologies .
* Proven ability to manage multi-disciplinary SAP teams (functional, technical, basis, integration, testing).
* Experience in stakeholder management for SAP programs (business, IT, partners, vendors).
* Risk, issue, change request, and scope management expertise within SAP programs.
* Ability to support solution design, validate estimates, and challenge technical/functional assumptions.
* SAP certification (Activate / PMP / Prince2) is an advantage.
Competencies
Leadership & coaching • Empathy & discretion • Analytical planning • Decision-making • Communication & negotiation • Conflict resolution • Process/quality orientation • Continuous improvement mindset • SAP project leadership • Risk/issue management • Stakeholder influence • Technical/functional SAP understanding
Success Metrics (KPIs)
Delivery
* On-time delivery rate
* Quality (defects, rework)
* SAP project milestone adherence
* Customer/internal satisfaction
Capacity
* Utilization balance
* Forecast accuracy
* Staffing lead time
People
* Performance cycle completion
* Development plan execution
* Retention
Governance
* Time reporting completeness/timeliness
* Escalation resolution time
Talent
* Hiring velocity (juniors + SAP profiles)
* Time-to-productivity