1. Purpose of ALM Tool
The ethos behind every creative and
innovative development of software
companies is to provide the best solutions
and ease the work flow of all kind of
organization. This leads to an increase
requirement for high-quality software
development services. To maintain the
quality organizations follow a certain set of
processes like planning, designing,
developing/configuring, testing, deploying,
operating, and optimizing business
applications to improve lifecycle
collaboration and software development
efficiency.
Application Lifecycle Management is not a
new term in software development; it is one
of the key processes that start with the initial
idea, followed by execution to the end of the application's life. The key here is to have sync
between start to end process.
For software companies creating something new and unique is always been a compelling process
and to be competitive among the competitors required a sustained and cumulative planning.
Every new application is astoundingly complex and to maintain its utility teams have to
overcome lot of challenges like time constrain and limited budget all of this with quality output.
A solution to this dilemma is to improve Lifecycle Collaboration with Application Lifecycle
Management.
ALM, in fact acts as a bridge that holds the development Life Cycle together. ALM as a tool
category began with source control tools, but with the growth of software development process
different types of tools added in the ALM space.
It is pivotal to pick tools. But tools aren't the only focus; the focus is how the tools connect to
achieve the end result. The main purpose for using ALM tools is to help and execute a project
according to a plan and to gain control over a project. It is implemented to bridge the gap
between team members, provides full traceability between projects artifacts, and eliminates the
need for unnecessary documentation hassles. In a simple word it is like balancing ALL phases of
the application lifecycle in one tool that includes configuration management tool, a requirement
tool, a bug tracking tool, or any integration between the different phases with full treatability
between all project artifacts.

2. There are two key approaches to go with an ALM framework. The first approach is to
congregate ALM tools and as per the requirements integrate them to build a customized ALM
platform. The second approach is to install a full-fledged ALM platform.
Which method of approach is more resourceful it all depends on the organization requirements;
nonetheless there are a few guidelines that should be taken into consideration while picking a
particular approach.
The first approach is all about selecting the right set of tools or integrated platform that will
remove the major bottlenecks and inefficiencies in the process. The main concern here is
integration cost. Even though assembling a set of tools gives more flexibility to support
organization's ALM process, the cost of integration needed to be taken into consideration for
building the required ALM framework.
The other approach is going for a complete set of ALM platform. The key here is to make sure
the platform is flexible enough to fit the bill i.e. organization's process. An important aspect that
we need to consider is that these processes usually has many tacit rules; it's not just what's
written in the manuals. One of the easy way of approaching is to look for the ability to "break the
rules" on the ALM platform. If we decide to go with this approach we need to make sure that we
should be in a situation to bend the pre-defined process if needed, to try innovative and creative
ways to do the process, or to handle an exceptional situation as and when required.
It is a fact that over the years with development of technology and with the demand of high
quality software, ALM tools have been divided into broad category. But with the right ALM
process, we can identify the areas where we need to be more proactive to remove inefficiencies
and then select the right tools for the job.
The purpose of having an ALM tool must cover at least the following components: Requirement
Management, test management, project management, issue management, change management,
release management, iteration Management and collaboration management.