Application Lifecycle Management

Articles

Efficient Preparation and Utilization of Test Data

Good test data is one of the major factors contributing to successful testing. Efficient test data management is imperative in ensuring software quality. Test data plays a vital role not only in testing but also the entire software lifecycle process. By creating quality test data, defects can be detected at an early stage in the software lifecycle process, which in turn helps to reduce cost and time to market and improves quality. The intent of this paper is to discuss an approach for the creation and utilization of test data, thereby improving the quality and coverage of testing software applications.

Getting Empirical about Refactoring

Often when we refactor, we look at local areas of code. If we take a wider view, using information from our version control systems, we can get a better sense of the effects of our refactoring efforts.

Michael Feathers's picture Michael Feathers
Software Is Art

We can measure, study, and understand the interactions between software and individual users, but what tools exist to understand the interaction among software creators, the software itself, and millions of users? Chris McMahon says we can't look to computer science, engineering, or manufacturing for tools to understand the experience of a large audience. Instead we should look to the performing arts for help understanding the audience experience.

Chris McMahon's picture Chris McMahon
Beyond Configuration Management into Application Lifecycle Management—Just a Change of Focus?

CM is an important driver for development productivity, yet remains often overlooked when discussing how the development lifecycle could be optimized. Often, this happens because of the perceived complexity of parallel strategies and additional overhead. However, today’s CM tools offer powerful capabilities that allow users to tap into that potential.

Mike Shepard
Personality Challenges Inherent in Shifting from CM into ALM

This month’s topic is a paradigm shift that requires that we move from focusing narrowly on the CM function to the much broader Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) view. I know people who cannot make this shift. From a personality perspective, these folks have great difficulty seeing the big picture and the more comprehensive lifecycle view required by ALM. There are good reasons for these problems, and in this article we’ll examine the personality challenges inherent in shifting from CM into ALM.

Leslie  Sachs's picture Leslie Sachs
Agile ALM—Opposites Attract

Agile and ALM are two terms that you don’t often see side by side. To most developers, agile means team interaction, customer collaboration, dynamism, and responsiveness to change. In contrast, ALM seems to imply the opposite of agile, with echoes of rigid procedures, inflexibility, and top-down process control. But are the agile and ALM approaches as contradictory as they first appear to be?

Mike Shepard
Are You Making Progress or Spinning Your Wheels?

While managing a long project, it's easy to lose track of progress. And, when that happens, how do you even know whether you're still making progress? In this article, Johanna Rothman offers suggestions to help you take your project one step at a time and keep it under control.

Johanna Rothman's picture Johanna Rothman
Ten Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) "Best" Practices

In his CM: The Next Generation Seriesm Joe Farah identifies and discusses ten application lifecycle management (ALM) best practices.

Joe Farah's picture Joe Farah
An Unusual Question about Managing Change

Change is disruptive. Even when a particular change leads to a positive outcome, the transition from the old way to the new way can be a time of turbulence. Might there be circumstances in which it's appropriate, or even helpful, to prolong that period of turbulence? That's the question Naomi Karten wrestles with in this column.

Naomi Karten's picture Naomi Karten
The "One Right Way"

For those who believe there has to be one right way to do something, especially in software development - there can be. But that one way isn't likely to come from a single individual. Through collaboration and teamwork, some of the greatest single ideas have evolved.

Lisa Crispin's picture Lisa Crispin

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