Skip to main content

The future of ALM in new age technology

ALM platforms are evolving
ALM, Application Lifecycle Management refers to the capability to integrate, coordinate and manage the different phases of the software delivery process. From development to deployment, ALM is a set of defined process and tools that include definition, design, development, testing, deployment and management. Throughout the ALM process, each of these steps are closely monitored and controlled.

ALM platform will have modules to support management of different phases of application development life cycle with integration facility with other market popular tools if needed by customers at different stages. The key phases require simplicity in usage, optimization to reduce time & effort, and flexibility to adapt in different situations. If platform supports all phases and importing of existing assets provided as feature the chances of full usage of ALM platform features are very high. 

Requirement Management: Here the expectation is to track from strategic top level requirement like business road map to release stage totally linked. This is managed differently in different enterprises some follow Initiative, Feature and then user stories as three layers pf requirements and some follow portfolio goals and project requirement. User definitely will look for defining, maintaining and tracking progress of each layer till the end. 

Release Management: Here the expectation is to define high-level road map as release plan which is strategic and go till operational plan like sprint/iteration plan with resources allocated and budgeted as accurately as possible. 

Project and Test Management: Here the expectation is to divide team member tasks to as low as 12-16 hrs and assigned to team member with provision to update status regularly. Features like alerting resource over loading and resource under utilization etc. are welcome so that necessary corrective actions are initiated. The main focus is also quality of release which assumed now a days as a thorough automated regression test apart from standard test phases which are also automated to the extent possible. With speed, quality and cost focused delivery goals, test automation feature integration is very key for ALM to succeed.

Defect Management: Here expectation is managing defect life cycle to ensure every component of solution has a same goal for release criteria. Many times at leadership team review, there is a demand for slides or reports traced from strategic initiative to open defect stage to take a good decision required for business. RTM - requirement traceability plays a key role in ALM platforms. 

In this new age people are moving towards DevOps implementation where operations drives the release definition once solution in field and automated tests, automated deployment, and automate roll-back all are welcome features of ALM. Therefore expectation to support above automated stages integration to right tools in use by organization makes the ALM platform more suited for enterprises. 




Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Lock down a new experience

Did we learn anything from this Covid-19 forced lock-down? I thought many of us experiencing something which we never experienced in our life so far. Let me share what I am going through in my first blog of this series, it may encourage people to share what worked for them so collectively we may get ideas on how to prepare to handle situation when lock- down is removed. Before lock-down After lock-down Get up at 6:00am go for yoga class between 6:30 to 7:30am. Read NEWS paper, get ready, neatly shave beard (though it looks like not required every day) and wear nicely ironed clothes, have breakfast, pack-up my lunch box and leave for office at 9 am. Reach office by 10:15 to 10:30am. Stand-up meeting with leadership team and get onto my daily planned activities. (We have/ sorry had 😊 a cook who comes at 6:00am and used to prepare breakfast and lunch to take for office). Get up 6:30am and help my wife in preparing some breakfast, squ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Managing Software Project Failures

Software Engineering is yet to find one solution where probability of success of meeting all objectives are high. Even though there are many research happening, people are still believing in process fine-tuning as one of the solution. The current trend is to adapt agile methodology with shorter sprint cycle of delivery to get customers feedback faster. Tool penetration in the Software Development Life Cycle also reduced human errors, improved productivity and reduced variance significantly.  This is one engineering field where tools are still evolving in each phase. Success in one phase is making people control schedule, quality and cost variance in projects significantly. That phase is functional testing phase.  In this blog I would like to share some of the challenges in functional test automation and approach which worked for me while consulting organizations.  I summarize the challenges I heard which you may hear in some of your current business situations....
Post a Comment
Read more

Life of automated tests

Automated Test Need Maintenance What stakeholders hate to hear is the news "Automated test will not work in this environment need maintenance". In the current industry trend many organizations will manage multiple versions of code going through different kind of changes or unique configurations settings. I am sure many of you in test automation area may be looking for one tool which supports sustenance of automated tests % while product is going through changes,  When to start focusing on test automation? Some industry veterans recommend to look at automation effort only when product is stable. But some people say automated tests always increase speed of going to market  so start anytime it is worth. Who is right? we are not sure. But challenge of sustaining automated test % in a given environment is always there for all of us.  Multi stage of product  A build developed goes through development environment, QA environment, Pre-production environment...
Post a Comment
Read more