Software Development Life Cycle -Tools for Transparency

Globalization led business world, depend on the technological innovations to meet the cut throat competition. Customer being the major priority in every business establishment, all the business oriented organizations and corporate houses look forward newer software applications to meet customer demands. However, every software developed indigenously by the organization’s software professionals or outsourced from experts in the field, has a life cycle of its own.

The software development life cycle or SDLC can be defined as the entire process of formal and logical steps taken to develop any software. In other words, it is a process of creating or altering software systems customized as per the models and methodologies of a particular organization. The software development life cycle involves the people, process and technology in its success drive, eases the complexities in the business and enhances the productivity status of the organization.

There are a number of methodologies and models are available to guide the software development lifecycle. Irrespective of being traditional, iterative, waterfall or Agile methodologies these solutions have a flexible workflow and configurable applications and can be customized as per organizational requirements. . Further, SDLC facilitates improvement of requirements management tools for software engineering and development and enhances its quality and efficiency.

The software development life cycle which is also referred under the new nomenclature of Application Lifecycle management, comprises of requirements management tools,  test management, risk management, release management and IT project management solutions. Other functions such as configuration management and build management which are functions of the SDLC are achieved through integration of third party tools with the help of the service integration bus adaptors.

The leading service providers in the industry list the strengths of the software development lifecycle as increased productivity with a proven framework for uniform methods, designs and operations. This also ensures timely delivery high quality software through adequate planning, control and total management while maximizing productivity. Being completely web based SDLC solutions facilitates information exchange and team collaborations over the web irrespective of time distance and geographical boundaries with the help of multiple input capturing methods, multiple reporting methods and traceability index.

The key features of the SDLC solutions include ability to trace relationships, multiple capturing methods, and multiple reporting options with automation of processes. However innovations in the technology has paved way for an integration platform or an service integration bus which would provide a platform for integrating standard SDLC tools ensuring transparency across various software development life cycle, macro and micro-level processes automation and clarity in communication across disciplines.

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Align IT Services with Business Requirements with ITSM

Today businesses largely depend on Information Technology (IT) for its survival. Technology plays a crucial role in providing the much needed help and necessary support to fulfill and satisfy the various requirements of the businesses. The technological advancements coupled with growing demand for improved productivity and enhanced quality have led to this incredible relationship between businesses and IT. As a result, this dependency has increased over the years.

For the smooth functioning of any form of business, management of technology is highly essential. Since business requirements are in a constant state of flux, there is the need to optimize IT services to satisfy the ever-changing business requirements. However, it is not as easy as it sounds, as management of IT is a very complex process.

Though all enterprises and organizations make use of technology for carrying out its various activities, they hit the wall when it comes to its management. However, management of technology is something that the enterprises and organizations must accomplish at any cost since without which it would be difficult for enterprises not only to satisfy its fluctuating requirements but also ensuring customer satisfaction.

As companies and enterprises realized the importance of building customer relationship for their businesses, there occurred a shift of focus from technology to the quality of services.  However, to provide quality services, the only possible way was management of technology.  This led to the concept of  IT Service Management (ITSM).

ITSM is a process-based discipline that details the IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL) documented best practices to allocate improved IT services to fulfill business requirements. And in that sense, it can be grouped in the category of other process improvement frameworks and methodologies such as CMMI, TQM, Six Sigma, business process management and so on.

The intention behind implementing ITSM is to align the IT department and its IT services with the business requirements. Implementation of IT Service Management process consists of five stages and they are

·         Assessment
It involves the evaluation of the current state of IT infrastructure

·         Architect and Design

It involves designing of the future desired state of the IT infrastructure

·         Planning

Develop plans in order to achieve the future desired state of the IT infrastructure

·         Implementation

Implement the plans to realize the future desired state of IT infrastructure

·         Support

Provide all the necessary support to maintain and even improve the future desired state of the IT

Companies and organizations can seek the help of leading solution providers in implementing ITSM processes successfully anywhere and anytime using effective IT Service Management tools.  

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Rendering Promising Performances with the IT Help Desk Software

The purpose of the IT help desk software is to facilitate customers to submit requests and report incidents. It helps the customers to communicate with the IT administrators for finding resolutions. The software should provide automated processes that help in identifying the issues and finding the resolutions accurately without any delays. It should help the customers to submit tickets without any complications and forward the tickets with the updated status to the IT administrators for resolving the issues effectively without any possibilities of recurrence.

The IT help desk software should have the capability to support multiple processes and facilitate the execution of several workflows within a single interface. A flexible IT help desk process facilitates the designers to make changes promptly without any issues. It facilitates the execution of multiple tasks that are all related to one particular ticket. It should provide the facility of calculating and estimating the service level agreements easily and automatically. It should provide a dashboard for viewing the performance of the helpdesk in real-time. It should provide solutions that can easily integrate with the other processes and help in building an efficient and productive management process.

The development of ideal IT help desk software is dependent on the application lifecycle management platform that is responsible for the entire development cycle with enhanced collaboration and traceability capabilities. The ALM process has to capture the requirements of your business accurately and track the progress of the entire process. It should provide real-time updates so that critical business decisions can be implemented and changes can be adopted without any hassles.

The application lifecycle management process should deploy responsible test management practices such as maintaining the inventory of test items, planning on how, why, where and when to perform tests, running the tests, analyzing the reporting the test results, measuring and tracking the quality of the end product. The application lifecycle management process also includes tools for issues management and risk management. It ensures that all issues are captured efficiently, tracked, prioritized and effectively resolved. Similarly it monitors and assesses the risks to understand their impacts.

The application lifecycle management process plans the deployment of the software with the help of a competent release management process. It designs and deploys processes for distribution and installation of changes to IT systems. It provides a secured operations environment free from any disturbances or interferences. It provides proficient project management capabilities with integrated, automated and customized solutions for the development of deserving IT help desk software.

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