This document provides an introduction to continuous ALM improvement. It defines ALM as application lifecycle management, which includes the processes for bringing software from idea to reality, as well as the tools that support these processes. It discusses achieving continuous improvement by identifying small changes that can be made iteratively to processes and tools. This includes improving existing tools, introducing new tools, removing unnecessary "taxes" on teams, and ensuring tools meet reporting needs. The goal is to efficiently deliver software while introducing minimum impact on the development team.

1. ALM 101
An introduction to continuous ALM improvement
Prepared by: Jason St-Cyr

2. What is ALM?
• Development processes
• Tools supporting processes
What is the lifecycle?
How do we achieve continuous improvement?
How do we plan for change?

3. What is ALM?
• Application Lifecycle Management (ALM)
- Processes define how we bring software from idea to reality
- Tools support us along the way while building software
• ALM plans should aim for efficiently delivering software
with minimum ‘tax’ on the team
• ALM plans should aim for efficiently introducing tools
to support this delivery
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4. • Improve the processes
• Can small changes to the
use of existing tools
improve efficiency?
• Are there new tools that
can make our process
better?
• Are there ‘taxes’ on the
team that are yielding little
value?
• What do we need to
report on?
• Improve the tools
• What pains do team
members feel with the
current tools?
• Are tools reaching end-of-
life or becoming outdated?
• Can we share data?
• Is there a more efficient
way to integrate our tools?
• Can we get the data
needed for reporting?
Where do we need to improve?
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5. What is the lifecycle?
• Idea
• Business Case
• Requirements
• Design & Architecture
• Development
• Test
• Operations
• End of Life
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From: http://www.clemensreijnen.nl/
Author: Clemens Reijnen

6. How do we achieve continuous
improvement in our ALM?
• The steps:
- Identify and prioritize the changes that need to be made
- Make a change and observe its impact
- Adjust and introduce another change
• Can apply to process improvements as well as tool introduction
- Introduce a new bug reporting system
- Allow project to pilot new system. Adjust based on feedback
- Roll out to other project teams for new work. Adjust based on feedback
- Gradually deprecate use of previous bug reporting system
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Ideas
Build
Product
Measure
Data
Learn

7. How do we plan for the change?
• Identify:
- What’s wrong right now?
- Where are we trying to get to?
- Who will be impacted by the changes?
- What constraints on change will there be?
• Create iterative approach to introduce the change
• Plan for monitoring the change
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8. Focusing on DevOps
• The goal:
- Reduce time lapse between the reporting of an idea/issue and the
deployment of the solution in production
• How we do this:
- More efficient delivery by development team
- Increased delivery frequency to all environments
- Embedded test automation on all builds
- Tighter integration between the development and operations
teams
- Traceability of the release management cycle
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OPSOPSDEVDEV

9. DevOps Maturity Model
ALM 101
DevOps
Analysis
Source
Control
Strategy
Automated
Builds
Automated
Testing
Continuous
Delivery
Continuous
Deployment
Not sure where to start? We can help!

10. Lessons Learned
Jason St-Cyr
 Solution Architect, nonlinear digital
 Background in .NET software development and Application Lifecycle
Management
 Contact me: jst-cyr@nonlinear.ca
 Around the web:
 Technical Blog:
http://theagilecoder.wordpress.com
 LinkedIn Profile:
http://www.linkedin.com/pub/jason-st-cyr/26/a73/645
 Nonlinear Thinking:
http://www.nonlinearcreations.com/Digital/how-we-think/
 Twitter: @AgileStCyr