The SAP Activate Explore phase is centered on fit-to-standard workshops. During these sessions, the project team demonstrates SAP standard processes to business experts and managers. The primary goal is to encourage the adoption of these standards and identify any critical gaps. A typical change management challenge that arises directly from this activity is resistance from managers who are accustomed to their existing, often highly customized, processes. They may perceive the cloud standard as a loss of control, a step backward in functionality, or a threat to their department's unique operational methods.

A. Some business departments do not feel well prepared for the go-live.

This concern is characteristic of the Deploy phase, which immediately precedes go-live, not the much earlier Explore phase.

B. Some business users do not adopt the new cloud solution.

User adoption is a post-implementation challenge measured and addressed during the Run phase, after the system is live.

D. Some project team members have never heard of organizational change management.

This is a project team competency or readiness issue, which should be addressed during the Prepare phase, not a business-side challenge typical of the Explore phase activities.

1. SAP Activate Roadmap Viewer: In the "SAP S/4HANA Cloud, Public Edition" roadmap, the Explore phase contains the "Organizational Change Management" workstream. The "Conduct Change Impact Analysis" task is performed here. Its purpose is to identify stakeholder reactions and potential resistance to the process changes identified during the fit-to-standard workshops. This directly addresses the challenge of managerial resistance to the standard. (Source: SAP Activate Roadmap Viewer, Explore Phase, Organizational Change Management workstream).

2. SAP Official Courseware (ACT100 - SAP Activate Methodology): Unit 4, Lesson 2 on the Explore Phase details the Fit-to-Standard workshops. The course materials emphasize that a key objective of change management in this phase is to manage stakeholder expectations and gain buy-in for adopting standard processes, implicitly acknowledging that resistance is a primary challenge to overcome.

3. SAP Press (2020). SAP Activate: Project Management for SAP S/4HANA and SAP S/4HANA Cloud (3rd Edition): Chapter 5, "Explore Phase," discusses the importance of change management during the fit-to-standard analysis. It highlights that this is the point where the "as-is" meets the "to-be," and resistance from business leaders who are invested in the current processes is a common and significant hurdle that must be managed proactively. (See Section 5.4: Organizational Change Management).