Volume 9 - Number 7 - July 2011
 Designing and implementing CM and ALM strategies is not easy. Many professionals try and fail due to the many challenges they must overcome in order to achieve success. Whether you define CM narrowly as identifying and controlling changes or have a more comprehensive view of ALM as impacting the full development lifecycle, you want to get your strategies in line to meet your goals. This month, the CM Journal authors cover a wide array of topics designed to help you achieve success through effective CM and ALM strategies.
Harsh Sabikhi explains that application lifecycle management (ALM) encompasses all practices and disciplines of software development, while SmartBear's Steve Miller addresses the thorny ALM issues. Leslie Sachs analyzes coordination, collaboration, and communication in personality matters. Lance Lyons digs in deep on database versioning. Ben Weatherall tells us that you need a strategy to implement CM and ALM, and I share my own experiences with implementing strategies to support CM and ALM in my column, Behaviorally Speaking.
Picking the right strategy is essential for your success, and you have come to the right place to learn from the experts. Next, share your experiences with us all in the CM Crossroads forums and groups and by submitting your own articles for publication!
Bob Aiello
Editor in Chief
CM Crossroads
raiello@acm.org
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A Practical Way to do Agile in an Enterprise ALM Environment
by Harsh Sabikhi
Agile is no longer the new kid on the block. It has existed for over a decade, and many claim it has crossed the chasm. Numerous development organizations have already adopted agile practices or are in the process of doing so. The speed of adoption depends on the customers’ environment. In this article, I discuss how to practically adopt agile in an enterprise Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) environment.
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Strategies for Addressing Thorny ALM Issues
by Steve Miller
If you’ve worked in software development and/or quality management (QM) for many years, you’ve probably found yourself in all kinds of thorny situations when it comes to managing the software development lifecycle. In my twenty-six years in this profession, I sure have, and I have the bruises to prove it. Missed deadlines, buggy releases, upset customers, and cranky bosses drilling me on why I didn’t foresee and proactively plan for these issues. Taking from those lessons learned, this article addresses a few of the challenges that you may face when implementing application lifecycle management (ALM) strategies.
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Personality Matters - CM and ALM Strategies
by Leslie Sachs
Effective collaboration-the central goal of any CM or ALM strategy-is dependent upon both strong communication and cooperation. If you have been involved with any technology-related efforts, then you will instantly recognize how often teams struggle with effective collaboration, communication, and cooperation. Successful managers deal with these challenges and help their teams smooth out the conflicts that often threaten to disrupt the team's effectiveness. This article covers several key “people” issues that you should consider when implementing CM and ALM strategies.
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Continuous Integration Automated Database Update Process
by Lance Lyons
Developers must have good feedback to ensure productivity. Most shops have a CI build process that allows the developer to quickly know if a build failed, and some shops have an automatic deploy of the CI build to provide website feedback. However, most shops don’t have an automated update for databases in the CI environment. Without this database automation, the website CI is incomplete or requires a database administrator (DBA) to constantly update the database as developers hand over new changes. In this article, I write about an approach to automating the update of databases in a CI environment that we currently use at Onlife Health Inc., a Brentwood, TN based subsidiary of Blue Cross Blue Shield of Tennessee who specializes in personal health coaching.
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A Strategy for Building an ALM Solution
by Ben Weatherall
An ALM tool is a framework that glues together the various software configuration management (SCM) tools into something that automates a software development lifecycle, such as the one shown in figure 1. Unless you get your application lifecycle management (ALM) solution out of a box, you’ll need a strategy for implementing one. This article offers some simple guidelines for creating a working roadmap.
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Behaviorally Speaking - CM and ALM Strategies
by Bob Aiello
Configuration management (CM) and application lifecycle management (ALM) are not easy to implement. Having developed strategies to support both CM and ALM in many organizations, I must say that I was not always satisfied with the results, and neither was the management above me. But I’ve also been successful, largely because I came up with a strategy that made sense for the organization. Creating the right approach is not always easy. I’ve learned a few lessons along the way that I share with you here.
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