The document discusses future trends in software development lifecycle (SDLC) tools and processes, focusing on the adoption of agile methodologies and the need for continuous delivery in large enterprises. It highlights the challenges of maintaining predictability in project planning while addressing regulatory constraints, and advocates for a more flexible, end-to-end approach to project portfolio management. The document also emphasizes automation and integration as key components to improve release management and streamline development processes.

1. SDLC – Future Trends in
Tools and Processes
Balazs Fejes (FB2)
Director, Product Management

2. Topics
Interesting Trends
•
•
•
•
Processes: Agility vs predictability: Enterprise Agile Portfolios
Tools: VCSes going upstream vs Lifecycle tools going downstream
Release Management: True continuous delivery
If time permits: some other cool stuff
What
is doing about these
areas?

3. Processes: Enterprise Agile Portfolio
Agile is king!

4. Processes: Enterprise Agile Portfolio
• 99% of our clients are sold on Agile
• From small projects up to large 100+ developer programs
• We at EPAM know how to scale and do distributed Agile
• Organization structures, Scrum of Scrums
• Coaching, tracking team work is solved
• Problem: large Enterprises give up (the illusion of) predictable planning
• Or even worse: maintain detailed MPP plans, the least agile thing
• How to handle cross-team dependencies?
• Marketing, business needs dependable release dates
• Many client (example: banks) have regulatory constraints on level of
auditing, quality control, documentation
• Solution: Enable Project Portfolio level, cross-team planning, road
mapping, monitoring

5. Processes: Enterprise Agile Portfolio
Business
Need
Architectural
Need
Is implemented by
Epic
Epic
Epic
Epic
PORTFOLIO PROGRAM
Investment
Theme
Is implemented by
Story
Story
Story
Story
Story
Story
TEAM
Story
SAFe Process Framework (Scaling Agile)
• Program level governance
• Top-down work package assignment
• Roll-up progress tracking
• Illusion of control is back 
Program Portfolio Management Team
• PMO
• BA pool
• Federal, cross-work stream architects
• Release Management
Is it still Agile?
• Decentralized, Rolling Wave planning
• Agile Estimation and Sprint Planning
• Self-managing Agile teams
• Objective, code and KPI based measures

6. Project Portfolio Management Tooling

7. Software Development Lifecycle Tooling
• In the “old days”: SDLC: single-purpose tools, used by different project
roles (BA, PM, testers, technical writers, developers)
• Requirements management tool, Project Planning tool,
documentation tool, testing tool, IDE, build management tool
• Modern, Agile SDLC
• minimize non-code artifacts
• Roles not separated: developer can test, estimate, plan. Tester can
document requirement, implement test code
• Minimize duplication
• Solution: Single, end-to-end platform for whole Agile SDLC

8. Software Development Lifecycle Tooling
Every tool vendor: Let’s build everything in!

9. Software Development Lifecycle Tooling

10. Software Development Lifecycle Tooling

11. Software Development Lifecycle Tooling
Not so great in Project Portfolio – no
sub-projects

12. Software Development Lifecycle Tooling

13. Software Development Lifecycle Tooling

14. Software Development Lifecycle Tooling
Not focused on developers, super
expensive

15. Software Development Lifecycle Tooling

16. Software Development Lifecycle Tooling

17. Software Development Lifecycle Tooling

18. Software Development Lifecycle Tooling

19. Software Development Lifecycle Tooling

20. Software Development Lifecycle Tooling

21. Software Development Lifecycle Tooling
• EPAM’s strategic pick is Atlassian
• Self-hosting
• Extensibility
• Configurability
• Not cheap but affordable
• We’ll fill in the missing, weak spots
• Keep an eye on trends…

22. EPAM xPMC

23. Continuous Delivery
• How do you apply Agile to Release Management?
• Traditionally the least agile aspect of development
• Rigid quality gates
• Multi-person approval cycles
• Separate teams having access to Production environments
• Problem: On big projects, actual (Agile) development time shrinks by 3-4
months just to get into Waterfall Release Management cycle
• Solution:
• Automation, automation, automation
• Continuous integration, test automation, deployment automation,
data/schema migration
• Fantastic quality to gain stakeholder confidence
• Or at least rapid problem resolution

24. Continuous Delivery
Implications:
• Preferably single
system for all aspects
(requirements, tasks,
workflows, bug
reports)
• Smart branching
strategies
• Ability to release
single features
• Ability to roll back or
switch to backup
system
• Eventually cut out the
middle men!

25. Continuous Delivery - xPMC

26. Other cool stuff on the horizon
PaaS – Web-based IDE - this is how we’ll work in a few years

27. Full-stack JavaScript

28. Thank You
Balazs Fejes (FB2)
Director, Product Management
fb2@epam.com
balazsfejes2
hu.linkedin.com/in/fbalazs/
@fb2