I have received several questions regarding the evolution of ALM and ALM systems.
Following post is a brief regarding the Application lifecycle management generations and evolution
Before ALM - There were some tools, or even no tools at all, and each tool did its role. There was no synchronization between the tools.
ALM 1.0 Tools (before even the term ALM was too common) was a set of separated tools that were synced manually in the best case.
ALM 2.0 is the unified platform for all development aspects, one repository, strong analytics and sharing of common services such as security, workflows, templates, etc.
ALM 2.5 (A new term I thought of...) is the next generation of application lifecycle management tools, talks about using the data collected during the development, define behavioural patterns and proactively generate alerts and metrics that will help the organization taking the right decisions, while taking into account every aspect of the development.
Each change submitted will list all the affected areas in the system, will show relevancy rank of affected items and show quality rank for each affected item.
More on that on my next posts....
Showing posts with label alm. Show all posts
Showing posts with label alm. Show all posts
Friday, May 29, 2009
Friday, May 22, 2009
How important is to Jump Start with ALM professional service program?
It’s not easy for software companies to improve operating efficiency while responding to market changes. Improving productivity across business processes requires visibility, speed, and automation. The ALM professional services program can tailor the ALM software to your needs and roll it out quickly and, it can be adapted to changing requirements. Find out how it can grow with your company.
Whether you device manufacture industrial components or software vendor, your success depends on how quickly and effectively you adapt to change. Coping with evolving customer demands, government regulations, and your own market requires constant innovation to bring new products and services to market while controlling costs especially information technology costs.
It is a challenge to be competitive as well as efficient and profitable.
Even with a local customer base, you are likely operating in an integrated global environment where stakeholders are placed around the globe. Limited visibility into business drivers can hamper your efficiency, ALM introduce a well define concept of information gathering at the same time. Rising costs and shrinking cycle times for software development require increased internal efficiencies from flexible software development methods to streamlined order fulfillment. To improve productivity across business processes, you need visibility, speed, and automation. The ALM professional service program is designed to help you tailor an ALM unified platform solution to your needs and get it up and running quickly. Complete with preconfigured system, the program should be easily adaptable to changing requirements, growing with your business. The ALM unified platform solution supports the processes you perform to meet daily business needs from market requirements and product requirements roadmap planning to development and testing and deployment at customer site. When you have selected ALM solution to your organization, at the same time make sure you have preset resources to the implementation program which will enable your employees to make most out of the ALM solution .
Whether you device manufacture industrial components or software vendor, your success depends on how quickly and effectively you adapt to change. Coping with evolving customer demands, government regulations, and your own market requires constant innovation to bring new products and services to market while controlling costs especially information technology costs.
It is a challenge to be competitive as well as efficient and profitable.
Even with a local customer base, you are likely operating in an integrated global environment where stakeholders are placed around the globe. Limited visibility into business drivers can hamper your efficiency, ALM introduce a well define concept of information gathering at the same time. Rising costs and shrinking cycle times for software development require increased internal efficiencies from flexible software development methods to streamlined order fulfillment. To improve productivity across business processes, you need visibility, speed, and automation. The ALM professional service program is designed to help you tailor an ALM unified platform solution to your needs and get it up and running quickly. Complete with preconfigured system, the program should be easily adaptable to changing requirements, growing with your business. The ALM unified platform solution supports the processes you perform to meet daily business needs from market requirements and product requirements roadmap planning to development and testing and deployment at customer site. When you have selected ALM solution to your organization, at the same time make sure you have preset resources to the implementation program which will enable your employees to make most out of the ALM solution .
Monday, March 9, 2009
140 words – Process flow/ Workflow in ALM systems
A work flow/process flow is a set or predefined steps that illustrate the progress of work being done.
Using workflow in application lifecycle management is used to track development progress of all ALM artifacts, such as project, requirements, tasks, test cases, defects and so on.
Most ALM tools allow the admin to set the default assignee upon ALM artifact state (status) change.
For example, a defect workflow manages the defect lifecycle, from creation to resolution.
Defect reported in status “New” and assigned to the team leader, who allocate the defect to the relevant developer. Once done, the defect status is changed to “Assigned”.
The assigned developer can fix the defect (“Fixed”) or reject the defect due to the following reasons:”Not reproduced”, “As design”, “Need more info”. In that case, the defect is routed back to the creator (Tester) for further investigation.
Full workflow examples will be given in the next posts
Using workflow in application lifecycle management is used to track development progress of all ALM artifacts, such as project, requirements, tasks, test cases, defects and so on.
Most ALM tools allow the admin to set the default assignee upon ALM artifact state (status) change.
For example, a defect workflow manages the defect lifecycle, from creation to resolution.
Defect reported in status “New” and assigned to the team leader, who allocate the defect to the relevant developer. Once done, the defect status is changed to “Assigned”.
The assigned developer can fix the defect (“Fixed”) or reject the defect due to the following reasons:”Not reproduced”, “As design”, “Need more info”. In that case, the defect is routed back to the creator (Tester) for further investigation.
Full workflow examples will be given in the next posts
140 words - Implementing Application Lifecycle Management Tool
purchasing and installing the right ALM system or set of tools is not enough. Most organizations don’t realize the hidden cost of using ALM systems. Using an integrated application lifecycle management requires the organization to consider the followings:
Existing ALM methodologies might need to change;
Resistance of users, now need to “serve” another system, not to mention the fact that they are under “surveillance”, since all their activities and performance is now documented…;
It requires some time for to exploit the full benefits an ALM system;
If several tools are in use – traceability is not natural. It might require lots of investments in order to make all systems “talk” to each other;
And finally – not all organizations are mature enough, or ready for such a change, as good as it can be
Existing ALM methodologies might need to change;
Resistance of users, now need to “serve” another system, not to mention the fact that they are under “surveillance”, since all their activities and performance is now documented…;
It requires some time for to exploit the full benefits an ALM system;
If several tools are in use – traceability is not natural. It might require lots of investments in order to make all systems “talk” to each other;
And finally – not all organizations are mature enough, or ready for such a change, as good as it can be
Friday, February 27, 2009
140 words - ALM terms
Each term will be described in separate post. But please note: This blog addresses each part of the lifecycle in a holistic way. Just defect tracking is not interesting.
ALM is a live organism. One part cannot live by itself. Each aspect is a part of the whole, and this is the way I will address it.
ALM - Application Lifecycle Management, ALM 2.0, ALM for medical, SDLC - Software Development Lifecycle Management, SLM - Software Lifecycle Management, project management, process flow, risk management, high level/low level Requirements Management, high level/detailed design, R&D tasks, unit tests, test management - Test plan, Test automation, test run, test results, defect tracking, build manager, source code integration, change management, analytics, coverage matrix, traceability matrix, release manager, tracking and reports, Regulations, The PLM/ALM aspect, 3rd party integration, customer management, action items, release notes.
ALM is a live organism. One part cannot live by itself. Each aspect is a part of the whole, and this is the way I will address it.
ALM - Application Lifecycle Management, ALM 2.0, ALM for medical, SDLC - Software Development Lifecycle Management, SLM - Software Lifecycle Management, project management, process flow, risk management, high level/low level Requirements Management, high level/detailed design, R&D tasks, unit tests, test management - Test plan, Test automation, test run, test results, defect tracking, build manager, source code integration, change management, analytics, coverage matrix, traceability matrix, release manager, tracking and reports, Regulations, The PLM/ALM aspect, 3rd party integration, customer management, action items, release notes.
140 words on ALM prediction
140 words on ALM Prediction benefits
Why do managers need prediction? Why they know more than any ALM system.
True. No ALM analytics system can replace an experienced manager.
Well, prediction is not a replacement. It’s a decision support tool.
It can tell you when you should stop the development and check if you exceed the planed release; when your QA is diverging; when customers defect reporting trend is more than the organizational average. It can help you take decisions whether to implement a change in your product; asses the impact of change in terms of time and cost; asses affect on other components in your product.
To summaries – ALM prediction is not the new sheriff. It is a decision support tool helping us to cope with the ever-changing environment we all live in, and see what’s under the ground…
Why do managers need prediction? Why they know more than any ALM system.
True. No ALM analytics system can replace an experienced manager.
Well, prediction is not a replacement. It’s a decision support tool.
It can tell you when you should stop the development and check if you exceed the planed release; when your QA is diverging; when customers defect reporting trend is more than the organizational average. It can help you take decisions whether to implement a change in your product; asses the impact of change in terms of time and cost; asses affect on other components in your product.
To summaries – ALM prediction is not the new sheriff. It is a decision support tool helping us to cope with the ever-changing environment we all live in, and see what’s under the ground…
ALM blog - 140 words posts
I want to thank all of you readers for the emails, and my apologies for being away for 2 weeks.
I guess application lifecycle management is really a growing trend and I see lots of interest in the ALM area, both in the Internet and during my work.
The ALM posts from now on will be as short as possible and as focused as possible.
I am going to start 140 words posts (seems it's the spirit these days…)
I will make it as interesting and as strait to the point as possible.
I will talk about a research my company does these days, in the area of Application Lifecycle Management prediction, such as predict of future defects, a change impact on overall project, estimated cost, and much more.
Sounds like science fiction?
I agree.
Well, 140 words are over…
I guess application lifecycle management is really a growing trend and I see lots of interest in the ALM area, both in the Internet and during my work.
The ALM posts from now on will be as short as possible and as focused as possible.
I am going to start 140 words posts (seems it's the spirit these days…)
I will make it as interesting and as strait to the point as possible.
I will talk about a research my company does these days, in the area of Application Lifecycle Management prediction, such as predict of future defects, a change impact on overall project, estimated cost, and much more.
Sounds like science fiction?
I agree.
Well, 140 words are over…
Wednesday, February 4, 2009
Requirements Management - Traceability Matrix
Requirements traceability is about tracing the lifecycle of requirements in all ALM aspects. It can be established using a variety of tools including Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) software, requirements management software, databases, spreadsheets, in-house tools or even with tables or hyperlinks in a word processor.
A requirements management traceability matrix is created by associating requirements with the other ALM artifacts that satisfy them, while the relationship of driver to satisfier can be one-to-one, one-to-many, many-to-one, or many-to-many.
Following relationships form the traceability matrix:
A requirements management traceability matrix is created by associating requirements with the other ALM artifacts that satisfy them, while the relationship of driver to satisfier can be one-to-one, one-to-many, many-to-one, or many-to-many.
Following relationships form the traceability matrix:
- High level and low level requirements
- Traceability from marketing department to R&D
- Risk management – relate requirements to risks
- ALM artifact such as code, test cases, test results, defects, tasks, detailed design
The following image illustrates the different relationships valid for requirements traceability:
- Traceability from marketing department to R&D
- Risk management – relate requirements to risks
- ALM artifact such as code, test cases, test results, defects, tasks, detailed design
The following image illustrates the different relationships valid for requirements traceability:
Sunday, February 1, 2009
What is Application Lifecycle Management (ALM)
Application lifecycle management becomes more and more crucial to project success as software becomes a major part of our lives. As offshore becomes an integral part in high-tech companies, each software development company must have a full visibility and control on the development process, in terms of quality, budget, and time to market. Furthermore, there is an increasing demand for compliance mandates by customers and the on going changes require an efficient change management.
According to Forester, Application Lifecycle Management, ALM, is “the coordination of development life-cycle activities, including requirements, modeling, development, build, and testing, through: 1) enforcement of processes that span these activities; 2) management of relationships between development artifacts used or produced by these activities; and 3) reporting on progress of the development effort as a whole”
So, there are 3 main pillars combining an ALM solution:
· Traceability of relationships between artifacts in ALM
· Automation of high-level processes in Application Lifecycle Management
· Analytics to provide visibility into the progress of development efforts in ALM
ALM 1.0 is talking about a single tool for each role; Application life-cycle management tools feature an impressive amount of redundant and usually inconsistent functionality in areas like workflow, collaboration, reporting and analytics; Repository synchronization is the primary means for integrating application lifecycle tools today - even when the tools concerned are all from the same vendor, but it is often difficult to establish, costly to maintain, or flat-out unworkable; Effort spent building and maintaining synchronizations leads to No single source of truth, and leads to overspending on ALM licensing.
ALM 2.0 talks about a single platform for the coordination and management of development activities, and not a collection of life-cycle tools with limited ALM features.
The advantages of ALM 2.0 over ALM 1.0 include:
One integrated system to manage all ALM artifacts
Product packaging - provide end users with simpler, cheaper tools, as one ALM platform provides a set of natively integrated tools.
Use of open integration standards - use of Web services APIs to ease and deepen integration between ALM tools with already existing legacy systems or single ALM tools.
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