Using ALM for business

Sometimes, companies tend to undermine the strategic value provided by IT and consider it as a cost centre for a company. Companies should try to use IT to its full potential and ensure that it coordinates with the business for best results.

The Butler Group in a research titled, ‘Application Lifecycle Management’ (ALM), says that there is a cultural divide between business and IT. When the business hands over its requirements to IT, their next contact is made only when delivery is expected. Butler hopes that with the use of ALM, process companies can bridge the gap between various enterprise IT applications and business needs.

Michael Asoff, a Senior Research Analyst with Butler Group and author of the study says, “Enterprise IT applications are valuable assets and ALM helps to manage them all, delivering business value”. He feels that ALM can be used as a means of inverting the traditional view of IT as a cost centre and changing it to one of a value generator. “While technology has leapt ahead, project sociology has not kept pace,” he adds.

ALM makes IT development visible to upper management. When combined with management processes such as Capability Maturity Model Integration (CMMi) and PRINCE2, it ensures that communication between business and the IT department improves.

ALM tools can also help deliver faster-to-market, high quality software products. In Butler Group’s view, the chief tools now available in ALM that can provide business intelligence on application delivery include Project Portfolio Management, Requirements Management, and Application Performance Management.