Saturday, October 31, 2009
Does standards helping pushing testers to the max
Our main concern is whether testers sometimes find themselves adhering to standards not because they believe them to be valuable on their project, but because they fear the consequences of being "non-compliant". Read more in the link.
Golden Rules for Building Great Software
Building great software has always been a tough task, but it becomes even more complex today. True to Orcanos’ commitment to excellence in the field of ALM 2.0, we have been building our QPack solution and our company in the past five years in order to help you develop great software. We have been putting a lot of effort and paying meticulous attention to every step we take, while trying to innovate in our own field.
As a result of this hard work, you can now benefit from 10 points that will help an ALM project owner lead an organization through the complete Application Lifecycle Management solution. This method has also been our own decisive success factor.
So here are ten golden rules for building great software:
1. Gain Management Skills: You can learn most of the skills needed in order to be a good manager. The management skills required include proper planning, execution and follow ups on tasks. Selection of the right steering team is also part of the management skills you need, as you will be required to empower your team to complete their tasks without your attention.
2. Have an Executive Sponsor: An executive sponsor is an executive manager who owns the ALM project in your organization but is also the one who pays the bills. Attendees who act as executive sponsors at kickoff meetings demonstrate management support for both the project leader and the ALM effort. The executive sponsor has the authority to resolve impasses that occur during the implementation project
3. Invite the Right People: Make sure all the right people attend the initial meetings. Overloading those meetings with a mix of people may create early conflicts while the first stage is all about brainstorming and rethinking your existing status. Bring subject matter experts whose advice is valuable for the discussions, as well as those individuals whose approval is mandatory in the decision making process. Make sure that decision makers not only have the authority to make decisions but also have the will to do so.
4. Assign People to Roles: Every person in the steering team is assigned to a specific role. In addition to the ALM project leader who plans and conducts the steering meetings, there is the executive sponsor, and a scribe who records decisions and unresolved issues. The ALM project owner should make sure each one of these individuals understands and plays his or her assigned role.
5. Do the Mandatory Pre-Work: It is important for the ALM project owner to ensure that everyone does the pre work prior to the actual Go-Live stage. Evaluating the solution according to pre defined success criteria is critical in order to shorten the evaluation stage. Learn yourselves first and identify the most critical issues you want to resolve. Make sure there is enough time for all the members of the steering team to review the material they need to respond to. Make sure you get feedback on critical issues first and then on the rest. Contact your steering team members periodically to make sure all decision makers are communicating well with each other.
6. Consider Pre-Meetings: For those who are new to the ALM world or to leading such a project, the ALM project owners should conduct a short training session prior to the first meeting. This will help the steering team understand the benefits of the ALM solution, the importance of the pre-work, the roles and the rules, the meeting processes and the consensus approach to decision making.
7. Obey the Rules: To ensure an orderly conduct of an ALM project, certain ground rules need to be in place. These rules are non negotiable and should be reviewed with the steering team before starting the evaluation of the ALM solution. Some of the standard ground rules are: Stick to the agenda; Discuss one topic at a time; Stop the project meetings in case a key participant leaves or is not attending; All decisions are either “yes” or “no”; Be open to all ideas; Treat all the decision makers as equal.
8. Go for Consensus: Decisions should be consensus-driven and simply be put to a vote. ALM projects involve all stakeholders in the organization, so leaving an important stakeholder out could disrupt the necessary information flow. Consensus-based decisions require participants to prefer the overall interests of the organization over individual interests. Consensus means decisions are supported both during the evaluation and after Go-Live.
9. Ensure Mutual Respect: It is important that ALM implementation will be conducted in an atmosphere of fairness and mutual respect. It is the ALM project owner’s duty to ensure that ideas and work products – rather than a specific stakeholder – are addressed in the final ALM solution. After all, ALM is an organizational platform and should be treated as such.
10. Get the Signoff: It is important that the ALM project owner will present the final deliverables (e.g. Reports, Design Documents, Plans, etc.) to the primary participants, in order to get their formal signoff. This assures the stakeholders fully accept the decisions taken and agree to move forward.
As a result of this hard work, you can now benefit from 10 points that will help an ALM project owner lead an organization through the complete Application Lifecycle Management solution. This method has also been our own decisive success factor.
So here are ten golden rules for building great software:
1. Gain Management Skills: You can learn most of the skills needed in order to be a good manager. The management skills required include proper planning, execution and follow ups on tasks. Selection of the right steering team is also part of the management skills you need, as you will be required to empower your team to complete their tasks without your attention.
2. Have an Executive Sponsor: An executive sponsor is an executive manager who owns the ALM project in your organization but is also the one who pays the bills. Attendees who act as executive sponsors at kickoff meetings demonstrate management support for both the project leader and the ALM effort. The executive sponsor has the authority to resolve impasses that occur during the implementation project
3. Invite the Right People: Make sure all the right people attend the initial meetings. Overloading those meetings with a mix of people may create early conflicts while the first stage is all about brainstorming and rethinking your existing status. Bring subject matter experts whose advice is valuable for the discussions, as well as those individuals whose approval is mandatory in the decision making process. Make sure that decision makers not only have the authority to make decisions but also have the will to do so.
4. Assign People to Roles: Every person in the steering team is assigned to a specific role. In addition to the ALM project leader who plans and conducts the steering meetings, there is the executive sponsor, and a scribe who records decisions and unresolved issues. The ALM project owner should make sure each one of these individuals understands and plays his or her assigned role.
5. Do the Mandatory Pre-Work: It is important for the ALM project owner to ensure that everyone does the pre work prior to the actual Go-Live stage. Evaluating the solution according to pre defined success criteria is critical in order to shorten the evaluation stage. Learn yourselves first and identify the most critical issues you want to resolve. Make sure there is enough time for all the members of the steering team to review the material they need to respond to. Make sure you get feedback on critical issues first and then on the rest. Contact your steering team members periodically to make sure all decision makers are communicating well with each other.
6. Consider Pre-Meetings: For those who are new to the ALM world or to leading such a project, the ALM project owners should conduct a short training session prior to the first meeting. This will help the steering team understand the benefits of the ALM solution, the importance of the pre-work, the roles and the rules, the meeting processes and the consensus approach to decision making.
7. Obey the Rules: To ensure an orderly conduct of an ALM project, certain ground rules need to be in place. These rules are non negotiable and should be reviewed with the steering team before starting the evaluation of the ALM solution. Some of the standard ground rules are: Stick to the agenda; Discuss one topic at a time; Stop the project meetings in case a key participant leaves or is not attending; All decisions are either “yes” or “no”; Be open to all ideas; Treat all the decision makers as equal.
8. Go for Consensus: Decisions should be consensus-driven and simply be put to a vote. ALM projects involve all stakeholders in the organization, so leaving an important stakeholder out could disrupt the necessary information flow. Consensus-based decisions require participants to prefer the overall interests of the organization over individual interests. Consensus means decisions are supported both during the evaluation and after Go-Live.
9. Ensure Mutual Respect: It is important that ALM implementation will be conducted in an atmosphere of fairness and mutual respect. It is the ALM project owner’s duty to ensure that ideas and work products – rather than a specific stakeholder – are addressed in the final ALM solution. After all, ALM is an organizational platform and should be treated as such.
10. Get the Signoff: It is important that the ALM project owner will present the final deliverables (e.g. Reports, Design Documents, Plans, etc.) to the primary participants, in order to get their formal signoff. This assures the stakeholders fully accept the decisions taken and agree to move forward.
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
Why PMO's Fail? Read More....
On top of the following article http://www.projectsmart.co.uk/why-pmos-fail.html
I also find that what ALM 2.0 brings into this domain is what becomes more critical to the project manager respond to scenarios that can be predicted. ALM 2.0 as collaborative system does the work and get the work done.
I also find that what ALM 2.0 brings into this domain is what becomes more critical to the project manager respond to scenarios that can be predicted. ALM 2.0 as collaborative system does the work and get the work done.
When to say SW is ready for BETA
When, how and what are parameters that a SW under development being verified by the test office should be judged ready for BETA (customer/user acceptance). One option could be based on the timelines and business case but then should we really follow the time lines all the time and send out a crapy SW to customers...
Friday, May 29, 2009
The application lifecycle management evolution
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....
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....
Sunday, May 24, 2009
The importance of requirements management
The following post discusses the importance of requirements management:
- The requirements management is the “technical language” that collaborates customers, marketing, development and QA
- Gathering, documenting, verifying, and managing requirements throughout the lifecycle ensures satisfying customer needs
- Requiremnts management assures finding defects earlier in the development process
- Keep product definition up-to-date and
- Communicate changes to the R&D
- Ensures that iterative refinements and unanticipated changes are adequately dealt with during the developemnt lifecycle
- Reduce communication overhead with customer and reduce number of patches delivered to customers for each release
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 .
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