The hallmark of industry leaders today is flexibility and agility. Organizational re-structuring is an on-going process. Geographical boundaries are no longer a barrier to collaborative development initiatives, and virtual teams are found everywhere. Software development practices must keep up.

In the traditional model, the application’s life begins when it’s envisioned by a stakeholder. Next, it’s designed by an architect and coded and tested by developers. Once development is complete, the software is run through QA by test teams and deployed by administrators. After deployment, it’s maintained by developers and administrators. Periodically, new versions are designed, coded, tested and deployed. Some day, far in the future, the application is decommissioned.

Every software house has implemented an application life cycle in its own way. Every organization also has its specific requirements for ALM tools. More than just development tools, today’s ALM solutions go beyond architecture, development and test. They encompass everything from project management, build management, source configuration management, metrics, reporting, process compliance, collaboration and governance.

In a modern ALM implementation, everyone involved in software development can actively contribute to the entire application life cycle, not just to their portion of it. Managers can see the entire life cycle of their projects, and understand how their resources are being used, and where workflow is not being as efficient as it should be.

A very important benefit of modern ALM solutions is that they can make software less expensive to build, in real terms, by accelerating portions of the life cycle, enhancing quality standards, providing meaningful metrics and fostering code reuse.

ALM is a process that naturally fits within AtomWeaver, being developed at Isomeris, my microISV. The true power of model-driven code generation will be realized when it can be properly supported, managed and applied.