Software and application development can be confusing and intimidating, especially without the help of consultants to guide you. Thankfully, there are plenty of tools you can take advantage of and experts you can contact to make your life easier and your software better.
Whether you’re looking to break into the industry or improve your current processes, an ALM consultant can take your development to the next level.
What Is ALM?
ALM stands for Application Life Cycle Management. It refers to the people, tools, and processes that manage the life cycle of an application from its conception to the end of its life. Application Life Cycle Management integrates Agile and DevOps development to improve collaboration and efficiency for development teams.
Application Life Cycle Management involves the continuous delivery of software and updates with frequent releases. Sometimes, these releases can happen as often as several times per day. This is contrary to the more typical industry standard of software development, which releases new updates anywhere between every few months to once a year.
ALM vs SDLC
Application Life Cycle Management may be confused with the Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC). However, while SDLC focuses mostly on the development phase, Application Life Cycle Management is focused on the entire application life cycle. In fact, Application Life Cycle Management may include several development life cycles in any given application. So, while the two are similar, they are not the same.
What Is ALM Consulting?
While Application Life Cycle Management itself is helpful to any development team, ALM consulting makes it accessible for anyone in any industry. Whether you’re a business looking for help on your next software project or your organization already has a team that needs assistance, an ALM consulting group could be the best fit for your company.
With an ALM consulting group, your company can experience faster deployments, improved visibility into your workflow, higher-quality products, and increased developer and user satisfaction.
What ALM Consulting Can Do For You
Now you have an idea of what an ALM consulting group is, but what can consultants do for you? Let’s take a look at some of the benefits of bringing consultants onto your team.
Facilitate Real-Time Decision Making
With an ALM consulting group, you can take advantage of assets like real-time planning and version control, which are found in most Application Life Cycle Management tools and processes. With plenty of access to helpful data and resources, your organization can map out an application’s future, so your organization can plan effectively, both in terms of timeline and budget.
This type of consulting help is especially important if your company plans to implement interdependent projects, as more complex analytics and decision making will be involved.
Increase Development Speed
Software is constantly evolving, and new software solutions are being released every day. With ALM consulting services, your business can stay one step ahead of the rest of the industry with faster application development. Not only is this great for your company’s reputation, but it also has financial benefits, as you can see the return on your investment more quickly.
With frequent releases, your company has the ability to put software into the world faster than your industry competitors, while still updating it and growing it each day, ensuring you always have a high-quality product. Your consulting partner will handle the management of these releases and updates, so you can focus on using or marketing the software.
Improve Quality
With source code management and an involved consulting team, your company can focus on high-quality development. By keeping development teams and quality assurance testers constantly in the loop, your consulting partner takes care of management and makes sure everyone is always on the same page, leaving no room for errors or miscommunication.
At the end of the day, this not only improves the quality of your software solutions, but it also improves the effectiveness with which the software is built and maintained.
Strengthen Testing Practices
Quality assurance testing ensures you receive and maintain a high-quality, well-functioning application. Without it, incorrect or missed functionality can fall through the cracks during development, causing financial strain from adding more time and resources to the project later.
ALM consulting groups provide your business with end-to-end application development and testing solutions that are used during every stage of the development process and throughout the entirety of the application’s lifespan. As a result, your organization will be able to identify and fix issues faster and more effectively.
Improve Support and Satisfaction
Support is a big asset of ALM consulting groups. Even though applications are being released quickly, Application Life Cycle Management ensures your company’s employees and users are supported and any issues are quickly addressed by maintaining frequent contact.
Your consultants will make sure your needs are met by integrating, adapting, and supporting all appropriate applications and data on a regular basis while responding to feedback from your business’s employees and users.
Provide Visibility During Project Life Cycle
ALM consulting groups provide high levels of visibility throughout the project life cycle. Your consulting partner will handle the management of your applications and data, so your company can view how many requirements have already been satisfied and how many remain to be resolved at any time.
With the help of your consultants, you will know exactly where you are in the development process and which parts of the application are testing complete. This will keep the consulting company’s development team and your organization in the know at all times.
If you’re ready to begin with ALM or optimize your current ALM process, partner with a company that has your best interest in mind. With Geneca, you’ll have guidance and expertise every step of the way. Contact our team today to get started.