We’ve all heard the arguments why agile won’t work in SAP environments. SAP projects are often large, high-stake initiatives that can span months or even years before the solution is delivered to production. At the same time, SAP systems are systems of record, making it risky to deliver incomplete software into production.
Despite this, the growing size and complexity of SAP environments, means businesses can no longer rely on slow, rigid, delivery models. Organizations that successfully adopt SAP agile methodologies and deliver SAP application more efficiently and cost-effectively gain a clear competitive advantage.
If you’re considering going agile but aren’t sure where to start, the following principles outline how to introduce SAP agile in controlled, low-risk way that allows your business to respond faster to market change.
1. Why your business should care about SAP agile?
Many organizations already use agile approaches for customer-facing applications, enabling faster iteration and continuous improvement. However, SAP back-end systems have traditionally not progressed at the same pace.
Today, SAP teams face increasing pressure to:
- Deliver more SAP changes
- Release updates more frequently
- Reduce risk to production systems
Agile development promotes rapid delivery of working software iterative cycles, such as sprints. Projects are broken into smaller manageable components, allowing teams to deliver value incrementally.
This is at odds with the traditional Waterfall approach in SAP development, which often results in:
- High delivery costs
- Poor system performance
- Lower software quality
- Dissatisfied business users
Adopting an SAP agile approach enables SAP applications and enhancements to evolve over time. This removes the need for extensive upfront documentation and allows solutions to adapt as business requirements change.
2. Define what success looks like for SAP agile
Becoming agile requires more than process changes. It demands an agile mindset supported by leadership commitment to providing tools, training, other resources, and more.
SAP IT teams must build a compelling business case that demonstrates how an agile approach delivers measurable value. This starts with understanding the current cost of SAP application delivery.
Key questions to assess include:
- What is the annual cost to deliver SAP projects and enhancements?
- How many errors reach production from development?
- What is the cost per hour of unplanned production system downtime?
- How much money is lost annually due to application failure and downtime?
- What is the value of faster delivery in revenue and innovation for competitive advantage?
- How efficient is your SAP change management process?
3. Prioritize and compartmentalize SAP projects
When starting your SAP agile journey, start small. Not all SAP projects are suited to agile delivery.
Identify projects with:
- Lower risk
- Limited product impact
- Clear business outcomes
Breaking SAP changes into discrete units allows them to be completed within sprint cycles. Larger SAP changes such as application capabilities and functions should be broken into tasks that can be delivered incrementally across multiple sprints.
This approach allows teams to learn, adapt, and refine practices while reducing delivery risk. Regardless of projects size, success depends on strong SAP change management discipline.
4. Automate to reduce risk and accelerate SAP agile
Many SAP change processes remain heavily manual. Every manual step in the SAP change process introduces risk, increasing the likelihood of productions incidents that can seriously impact your bottom line.
SAP change automation is the foundation of an agile methodology. Automation enables:
- Faster development cycles
- Improved quality of change
- Greater production system stability
Automating your SAP change management processes reduces human error and allows SAP IT teams to deliver changes more frequently without increasing risk.
An automated SAP change management solution such as Rev-Trac is critical for:
- Managing SAP transports at scale
- Enforcing consistent governance
- Supporting large SAP projects
Automation replaces risky manual processes with enforceable, auditable workflows that support agile and DevOps for SAP.
5. Develop a shift left and integration mindset
The transition to SAP agile does not happen overnight. To accelerate application delivery, organizations must adopt a shift-lift approach.
Shift left means:
- Designing, coding, and testing happen earlier in development
- Issues are identified and resolved sooner
- Security, integration, and compatibility issues are addressed upfront
The mindset encourages automation and a single, unified approach to SAP application delivery. Integrating testing, code review, and impact analysis tools into an end-to-end process increases delivery volume and quality while reducing costs.
Frequently asked questions about SAP agile
What is SAP agile?
SAP agile brings agile principles such as iterative delivery and continuous improvement to SAP application development while maintaining governance and control.
Can agile work in complex SAP environments?
Yes. With strong SAP change management, automation, risk controls, agile works effectively even in large, complex SAP environments.
How does automation support SAP agile?
Automation reduces manual effort, enforces quality controls, and enables frequent, reliable SAP changes without increasing risk.
Do you need special tools to support SAP agile?
Yes. Tools that automate SAP transports, approvals, and integrations are essential scale agile practices safely.
Get started now with agile for SAP
In a digital economy, businesses must adapt rapidly to constant market change. This includes SAP systems, which must deliver SAP change faster without risk to you IT environment.
An agile SAP methodology accelerates application delivery, improves quality, and speeds up time to ROI, freeing resources for innovation.
Automation is the foundation of SAP agile success. The closer organization get to their agile goals, the more automated and integrated systems and processes become.
Rev-Trac, an automated SAP change management solution, integrates with popular 3rd-party tools and supports SAP agile delivery, enabling faster releases, lower risk and greater operational efficiency.
Contact one of our SAP change management experts to learn how Rev-Trac helps organizations achieve SAP agile delivery at scale.
