Application Lifecycle Management through Agile and Cloud – A Case for Hosted Agile ALM

ALM is seen best accepted by organizations dealing with larger projects (i.e., the large enterprises), and does not sell very well with the SMEs. But once the ALM tools are offered as SaaS Agile ALMs, the resistance by SMEs in adopting ALM will reduce.

Since ALM is a process it continues to evolve. The best practices keep getting introduced as part of ALM processes. Agile methodologies are also now into mainstream with various styles of its adoption into application development lifecycles by various organizations. It has been noted that the Agile methodologies should be integrated into the ALM processes in order to bring about a combined synergic value (following the dogma of ‘the whole is greater than the sum of its parts’ by Aristotle) for increasing developer productivity and software quality along with reduced time to the project release.

The biggest problem of available ALM stack solutions is that they are too tool-heavy. Agile integration with ALM tools will be beneficial only when there is flawless horizontal and vertical automation. In the era where the case for embedded software development in hi-tech devices and smart mobile devices is gaining high momentum, Agile methodologies are in great demand. Organizations can see clear benefits of engaging with Agile methodologies for their multifaceted software development. Naturally this pull – being from the demand side – has drawn Agile into mainstream computing. This trend has also brought a paradigm shift in development industry and has given rise to the developer platforms in the cloud.

Agile adoption, which is also akin to Just-In-Time (JIT) concept of production (evolved in manufacturing segment), will especially benefit in a scenario where the stack consists of hosted developer platforms with automated and integrated IDEs, and integration with SaaS ALM tools. The true automation of processes is optimally feasible only through cloud solutions. Hosted developer platforms and the need for one-point solution for Agile ALM will force vendors to come up with service models in the cloud providing business value to their customers. We will see emergence of many Agile ALM tools in the near future as the most widely accepted way to application development.

Demand for mobile development environments is also on exponential growth. The iPhone, iPad (supported by iOS) and other smart mobile devices supported by Android have opened up many possibilities in application development. Many large enterprises encourage the distributed work culture and use of smart mobile devices in order to improve their productivity and keep costs at bay. There is growing trend where employees have a say in defining their work schedules. This creates a need to stay connected (almost always) and for effective collaboration for managing projects. It also creates a need for more enterprise applications that are deployable on mobile devices.

Such work trends will necessitate adoption of both processes – Agile and ALM – in hosted environments for managing projects with higher development velocity and higher individual productivity. Vendors in ALM market will now offer solutions with Agile methodologies integrated with the ALM tools and they cannot be shy of hosting them in the cloud. Clearly, there is a strong case emerging for hosted Agile ALM in the near future.

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