Listen to this article
Project and development managers face many challenges in delivering high-quality software on time and budget. The goal of developing better software quickly and without sacrificing quality is often hindered by the various roles such as product owners, developers, testers, release managers, and others operating within their own information silos. Disparate tools and systems while often necessary, frequently fail miserably when it comes to cross-domain sharing of knowledge.
Integrated ALM offers a holistic solution to this problem spanning across the tool chain and providing visibility throughout the development cycle. It also enables prioritization and planning necessary to head off problems early.
Short project schedules necessitate that the requirements elicitation and review process is handled both quickly and accurately. For today’s increasingly complex and critical products, managing requirements by document is cumbersome and inefficient at best, and in some cases nearly impossible. Many projects already enjoy the benefits of a requirements management tool, but the use of a real time collaborative web based tool allows internal and external stakeholders in different locations any time the access to work with these requirements without the need to install heavy client side tools. Web-based requirements management solutions that offer floating licenses can be particularly effective in eliminating barriers to use.
In the initial phases of the project, requirements are often far from stable, and yet in order to meet delivery schedules, development and testing to meet these requirements often must start as soon as possible. Eliminating manual handoff between stakeholders, requirements analysts, developers, testers and those in charge of release planning not only prevents “dropping the ball” but also eliminates costly delays and misunderstandings. It’s here that we can see some of the early benefits of integration.
Through integration. the status of individual development artifacts and tasks can be collected and updated as they actually occur in multiple development tools. For project managers, being able to see what is actually happening in real time enables effective planning and prioritization.
Adoption of good ALM practices within an organization, especially a large organization with multiple projects ongoing is no small task. However, through incremental adoption large benefits may be realized in a relatively short amount of time. Of particular importance, integrated ALM allows development tool users to remain within their preferred tool, with little or no change in the user’s workflow. In a typical scenario without integration, since different types of users don’t have access to each other’s tools, communications between the different roles is a deliberate task that takes the user away from their own environment. Through integrated ALM, better collaboration between various development roles is realized, without significant retraining of user habits.
Utilizing the Kovair Omnibus Integration Platform not only is it possible to move data between the various tools and Kovair ALM’s central repository, but also to establish and track traceability relations across the entire tool chain. For many projects which must establish and retain traceability due to development quality standards that must be followed, getting away from the burden of manual traceability offers obvious benefits. Automated traceability offers not only a reduction of time and effort, but also immediate visibility into the validation and verification status of project requirements.
The wealth of metrics and analysis available from an integrated ALM scenario with a central data repository enables continuous improvement efforts to be implemented based on accurate, real time information.
Ensuring on-time delivery is often a balancing act between requirements, resources and technical constraints. Identifying items which could jeopardize on-time delivery of a release as early as possible is of course ideal, but not always realized. The elimination of delay in handoffs, and real-time visibility can be of enormous help when deadlines draw near.
ALM middleware offers clear advantages throughout conceptual, requirements, development and maintenance of software applications. To learn more about Kovair’s unique ALM Integration Platform visit Omnibus Integration Platform.
Get Started with Kovair ALM, mention your requirements
I really appreciate your efforts put on this blog. You have shared very valuable information. This blog post will be very helpful for people. Thank you so much for sharing this kind of information.
This is an amazing & great post. Thank you so much for sharing your helpful information.