Let’s face it – software development isn’t getting any easier. The more efficient you become, the faster the market demands your products and services. Understanding just how well your development teams are operating is critical to continued success.
Conducting proper analysis of development teams involves measuring how well they perform as compared to other companies and generally accepted best practices. An Application Life-Cycle Management (ALM) Assessment is a measurement tool that provides the necessary evaluation.
What is ALM?
Forrester defines ALM solutions as:
Integrated tool sets that support and unite the following life-cycle activities: requirements management, design and modeling, development, software configuration management (SCM), and testing.
The three core pillars of ALM are:
- Traceability of relationships between artifacts – this is traditionally a labor-intensive, manual process, where the effort varies with the number and size of projects, the varying size and scope, and the number of artifact interdependencies. Compliance requirements make traceability a necessity.
- Automation of high-level processes – development organizations commonly use paper-based approval processes to control handoffs between functional areas. ALM solutions improve efficiency by automating these handoffs and by providing central storage for all associated documentation. Automated and executable process models are used by ALM solutions to ensure process adherence.
- Reporting to increase visibility – most managers have limited visibility into the progress of development projects. What visibility they have is typically gleaned from subjective testimonials, and not objective data. The lack of proper reporting also hinders opportunities for process improvement. The ALM reporting functions benefit from integration and automation to provide real-time status information and deep analysis of all activities.
Value of an ALM Assessment
Based on Microsoft’s Application Platform Optimization (APO) model, an ALM assessment provides a snap-shot of an organization’s ability to conceptualize, develop, deploy and support a software product or service. The assessment looks at both process and tools used in each of these areas along with the levels of integration between them. Ratings in each area measure both level of maturity and business impact. Using these measurements, your organization will be able to identify best practices along with key areas for investment. Assessment areas include:
- Program and Project Management/Planning
- Software Architecture and Design
- Requirements Gathering and End-User Experience
- Software Development
- Testing and Q/A
- Deployment, Operations Management, Compliance and Governance
- Software Configuration Management (SCM)
At the conclusion of the assessment, Centare Group provides a detailed report outlining our findings. This includes an Impact Map that offers a visual depiction of maturity vs. impact scores in each area. This graphical representation provides significant insight into an organization’s strengths and weaknesses. In addition, Centare Group also provides an Area Scoring/Details report and an Improvement Roadmap for future planning.
Assessment Process
An ALM Assessment is conducted on-site with Centare’s trained assessors interviewing a “slice” of your organization. They work closely with your team to choose a set of representatives to determine your overall ALM landscape. After our kickoff presentation and confidential one-on-one interviews, Centare’s ALM specialists use Microsoft-based tools to build a preliminary rating in each area. A few more select interviews are then conducted as we continue to collect relevant information and documentation to solidify our findings. Finally, Centare Group will share our analysis and present you with our final report.
More Information
To learn more about ALM Assessments and their business value, visit www.microsoft.com/assess or download Strategic Advantage and the Microsoft Application Platform (PDF).