Application Lifecycle Management as Infrastructure for Software Process Improvement and Evolution: Experience and Insights from Industry

Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) is widely promoted by tool vendors and ALM solutions have attracted the attention of many software developing companies. In this paper we describe the introduction of an ALM solution for software development in a large industrial manufacturing company. The introduction is complemented by several small-scale process improvement initiatives. Thereby the ALM solution was turned on itself by using the tool for the tool evaluation, the introduction as well as the process improvement activities. Based on this experience we explore whether the features provided by ALM for software development are also an effective utility for software process management. The paper shows how the ALM solution was applied for process development, process documentation, process implementation and process monitoring. We found that the concepts underlying ALM were suitable to support these activities and, furthermore, endorsed the view that software processes are software too.