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SAP DevOps Advisory

Energy and Utilities ChaRM gCTS SAP Solution Manager

A leading renewable energy developer gets a formal SAP Agile and DevOps operating model

A North American Renewable Energy Developer Delivered 2022

Mindset gave a major renewable energy developer a clear definition of what SAP Agile and DevOps meant for their organization, a current-state assessment, and a prioritized roadmap to continuous integration and delivery.

By the numbers

  • 3 weeks

    From no defined operating model to a prioritized CI/CD roadmap

  • 5 tools

    In the existing SAP toolchain assessed and rationalized

Before

Mixed tools, no shared model

  • Solution Manager, ServiceNow, Azure DevOps, ChaRM, and gCTS in use with no unified operating model tying them together.
  • Code conflicts, shifting requirements, and training gaps slowing SAP delivery.
  • No formal definition of what Agile and DevOps meant for the SAP team.

After

A defined DevOps operating model

  • A documented, organization-specific SAP Agile and DevOps definition with clear roles and responsibilities.
  • A current-state assessment naming the specific people, process, and tooling gaps.
  • A prioritized roadmap ready to guide investment decisions toward CI/CD.

Why this matters

A focused advisory that turned tool sprawl and an undefined DevOps ambition into a clear operating model and a roadmap the team could actually act on.

The challenge

The company's SAP delivery ran on a mix of tools: Solution Manager, ServiceNow, Azure DevOps, ChaRM, and gCTS. Each tool served a purpose, but there was no shared definition of how they fit together or what Agile and DevOps actually meant for this team.

Code conflicts slowed delivery. Resource constraints stretched the team thin. Training gaps meant not everyone was working the same way. Requirements shifted mid-stream. Before the organization could invest in a CI/CD capability, it needed a problem statement it could agree on and a credible path forward.

What we did

Over a focused three-week advisory engagement in early 2022, Mindset worked alongside the team to formalize their SAP Agile and DevOps definition and build the business case for the shift.

The work covered the full current state: team structure, roles and responsibilities, the software delivery lifecycle for both projects and small fixes, and the existing tool landscape. Mindset ran an educational session on Agile, Scrum, and DevOps ways of working, then facilitated collaborative solution identification across people, process, and technology.

The engagement closed with a prioritized roadmap of specific activities and investments pointing toward a future-state DevOps capability. Two Mindset specialists delivered the work remotely: a DevOps architect and a DevOps platform engineer.

The outcomes

The engagement produced a shared, documented definition of SAP Agile and DevOps tailored to this organization. The team left with a current-state assessment that named the specific friction points, a structured view of where people, process, and tooling needed to change, and a prioritized roadmap to guide investment decisions.

With a clear problem statement and a sequenced action plan in place, the organization could move from discussion to execution.

If we built this today

Concept · not delivered scope

One operating model for SAP change.

This is a forward-looking concept, not the scope we delivered on this engagement. It is the build we would reach for now, grounded in SAP that ships today.

This team ran SAP delivery across SolMan, ChaRM, gCTS, ServiceNow, and Azure DevOps with no shared definition of how they fit, so the path to CI/CD started with agreeing on one model of how change moves.

The data product

A delivery and change governance data product

A governed data product on SAP Business Data Cloud that joins ChaRM change documents, gCTS commits, and transport history into one model of how SAP change actually flows. That shared definition is what grounds the agent so it reasons over real delivery telemetry, not five disconnected tools.

Data product on SAP Business Data Cloud

The Joule agent

ChaRM Transport Orchestrator

Reads open change documents across SAP Solution Manager ChaRM and gCTS, checks transport sequence, object overlaps, and import readiness across the landscape, then proposes a clean release order with the conflicting transports flagged. It drafts the move plan and a CI/CD-style gate check, and a human on the change board still approves.

SAP Solution Manager (ChaRM), gCTS, SAP Cloud ALM · PROPOSE · Change lead time and transport-conflict / failed-import rate

The Fiori app

SAP Cloud ALM for change and release

The change-and-deployment management workspace with Joule embedded, where you see features, transports, and deployment status in one place instead of stitching SolMan, ChaRM, and a separate board together. Joule answers what is blocking a release and drafts the next move.

Joule embedded in the SAP Cloud ALM workspace

We would mine the real change-and-transport flow in SAP Signavio first, map the tool landscape in SAP LeanIX, and use MIND accelerators to carry the current operating model into the future-state one without losing what already works.

The Joule Agent Factory Process intelligence

What we built

  • Shared definition agreed across the organization

    SAP Agile and DevOps definition

    A formalized, organization-specific definition of what SAP Agile and DevOps means for this team, including roles, responsibilities, and ways of working.

  • Tool landscape and process gaps documented

    Current-state assessment

    A mapped view of the team structure, SDLC for projects and small fixes, and the full existing toolset spanning Solution Manager, ServiceNow, Azure DevOps, ChaRM, and gCTS.

  • Team aligned on Agile and DevOps foundations

    Agile and DevOps education session

    A hands-on session covering Agile, Scrum, and DevOps concepts to align the team on terminology and practices before the solution design work began.

  • Specific changes identified across all three dimensions

    People, process, and technology solution design

    Facilitated collaborative sessions to identify specific changes needed across organizational structure, SDLC practices, and the toolchain.

  • Roadmap ready for leadership decision-making

    Prioritized roadmap to CI/CD

    A sequenced set of activities and investments pointing from the current state toward a future-state continuous integration and delivery capability.