Introduction: From Silos to Value Streams
Clean core control depends on unified delivery teams that manage processes end-to-end across both S/4HANA and BTP.
Most SAP organizations are still structured around technical silos. Developers manage transports, business analysts document requirements, and BTP teams deliver extensions independently. These groups perform well inside their domains but rarely operate as one delivery unit focused on end-to-end process value.
The fragmentation intensifies in hybrid landscapes. Projects on S/4HANA and SAP Business Technology Platform (BTP) move at different speeds and under separate governance models. When they finally converge during testing or release, gaps appear—missed dependencies, incomplete validations, and duplicated changes that result in costly delays.
Clean core cannot depend on separate processes for each technology. It requires a unified delivery approach organized by value streams and shared outcomes. Cross-disciplinary teams work on integrated processes supported by SAP Cloud ALM, SAP Signavio, and enterprise platforms like Jira or Azure DevOps—so every improvement follows the same governed path from idea to deployment.
Clean core control depends on unified delivery teams that manage processes end-to-end across both S/4HANA and BTP.
Process Control Begins in SAP Cloud ALM
Process alignment is the foundation of clean core, linking business design to agile delivery.
Unified delivery starts with a shared view of the business process. With SAP Signavio, organizations model flows that span S/4HANA, BTP, and non-SAP apps to define how value moves across systems. Those models import to SAP Cloud ALM using SAP integrations, establishing guardrails and the scope of improvements targeted for each process.
Each scope item decomposes into Epics, Features, and User Stories in Jira or Azure DevOps. Through CoreALM’s Connectors for SAP Cloud ALM, those items link directly to Cloud ALM—creating a single, traceable thread from process design to execution, regardless of where development occurs.
Before releasing changes, Cloud ALM testing validates updates in the context of the designed business process. By linking Cloud ALM with Jira or Azure DevOps, you get a unified view of requirements, progress, and test results—fully traceable back to the target-state process flow.
Process alignment is the foundation of clean core, linking business design to agile delivery.
Unified Delivery: Agile Teams that Work by Process, Not by Platform
Value-stream teams deliver faster because they own the entire process, not just their part of it.
In a clean-core setup, agile means more than sprints. It means one team owns an entire process from start to finish—spanning SAP, BTP, and connected applications. Using Cloud ALM integration, these teams share the same requirements, test cases, and business process areas. CoreALM’s Jira and Azure DevOps connectors surface real-time progress across SAP, BTP, and non-SAP perspectives on the same boards.
This structure eliminates handoffs between applications and replaces them with collaboration centered on business value. Every sprint review validates measurable outcomes, and every transport or deployment aligns with the same improvement plan.
Value-stream teams deliver faster because they own the entire process, not just their part of it.
Keeping Core and Cloud in Step
With a unified process, changes are coordinated early and challenges are resolved before they cause delays.
Development across S/4HANA and BTP still needs technical synchronization. SAP Cloud ALM provides visibility into readiness, testing, and deployment status across both environments, while transport management ensures that core changes and extensions advance together.
For parallel development landscapes, automated synchronization can merge non-conflicting updates between project and maintenance systems—keeping both streams moving without long change freezes or manual reconciliations. The goal is to detect conflicts or dependencies early, so cutover remains controlled and continuous across cloud and on-prem systems.
With a unified process, changes are coordinated early and challenges are resolved before they cause delays.
Monitoring to Measure Real Business Impact
Every improvement should be validated by the value it creates for the business.
Clean-core governance only succeeds when it ties change to measurable outcomes. Cloud ALM provides monitoring and analytics to evaluate whether improvements deliver intended results—like higher throughput, reduced cycle time, or better compliance. Insights feed back into Signavio, creating a feedback loop where process designs evolve based on real-world data.
These results feed back into SAP Signavio, where future process changes can be modeled based on real data. Over time, this creates a feedback loop of continuous improvement where value streams evolve in alignment with the business.
Every improvement should be validated by the value it creates for the business.
Conclusion: Clean Core Delivery Through Unified Teams
Clean core is not a technical state. It is a way of working that unites business and IT around shared outcomes.
Organizations should not view clean core as a system architecture alone. It is an operational model that depends on unified delivery. When process-oriented teams follow a consistent framework orchestrated through SAP Signavio, SAP Cloud ALM, and CoreALM’s connectors for Jira and Azure DevOps, they can plan, build, test, and deploy across S/4HANA, BTP, and non-SAP systems within a single governed process.
This approach transforms how work happens:
- Teams align around processes, not systems.
- Governance becomes embedded in daily delivery.
- Every change is validated for both business value and technical integrity.
With CoreALM’s Jira Connector for SAP Cloud ALM and CoreALM’s Azure DevOps Connector for SAP Cloud ALM, enterprises run a one-process delivery model across hybrid SAP landscapes. Clean-core control becomes the natural result of unified, agile, process-driven delivery.
