SAP AppHaus methodology: it all starts with behavioral change

April 12, 2023

3 minutes

What is the secret to a successful digitization project? How can you make sure that your new app provides real business value, that users are enthused, and that they use it to the max? Spot-on, detailed specifications or killer technology alone will not do the trick. The secret: a clear focus on what truly matters and thorough understanding of your users and the business needs! Here’s how our SAP AppHaus methodology helps.

As an SAP AppHaus partner, we are dedicated to ‘humanizing’ business software development. In other words: we put people at the center of the development process. In this way, we help you create products that resonate with and are tailored to the users’ needs, which is a guarantee for product success. So, how does our approach work in practice? Every project starts with a strategy workshop to help you understand the users and business goals – so that you are sure to get the focus right.

Unless you have a vision, you haven’t begun to do the practice that makes you great.
Angela Duckworth - professor of psychology and winner of the 2013 MacArthur "Genius" grant

Behavioral change: that’s where it all starts

The goal of a software project is to build an application, right? Well, not really. At the highest level, software development is about supporting human behaviors by automating, replacing or creating them in order to solve a problem or help the company achieve certain objectives. That means you’ll need to instill a behavioral change in internal and external stakeholders. To be able to do so, you need to clearly comprehend the driving force behind your project.

Customer-centric design is about reaching goals, not performing tasks

According to the popular Fogg Behavior Model, three elements must converge at the same moment for a behavior to occur:

Motivation: the stakeholders need to understand how the action will help them achieve their goals or take away the struggle they are facing
Ability: the stakeholders need to be able to perform the action
A prompt (trigger): the stakeholders need the right solution at the right time

Taking the Fogg Model as a guideline, it is clear that developers should align the application they want to build with the goals and struggles of the different stakeholders if they want to instill behavioral changes (motivation). That implies they have to present the software at hand in such a way that its users immediately understand how it helps to achieve their goals.

Linking high-end goals to concrete deliverables

In our strategic workshop, our AppHaus experts invite stakeholders, developers and management to explore their goals and struggles, together with their needs. In the first stage of our workshop, they help you specify:

What are the goals of your organization?
Who are the stakeholders (actors) involved and what are their struggles and goals?
What actions do they need to perform to make sure you can reach your business goals?
What deliverables do they need to reach their goals and/or overcome their struggles?

Your benefits

Our strategy workshop results in a collection of features. By aligning these to your business goals, we get a clear overview of the features that will help:

your organization achieve its business goals
your stakeholders achieve their goals and overcome their struggles, which will ensure adoption

More than that, all efforts are aligned in the same direction. Your win: a clear focus and scope, plus motivated developers and stakeholders who’ll be eager to move up a notch to ensure a successful software development project.