The previous article in this series discussed the challenges of transforming the organization. Standardizing on a common process and tools is key to reducing confusion and enabling knowledge sharing across teams. This article discusses characteristics to look for when choosing tools, with a focus on the IBM® Rational® Collaborative Lifecycle Management (CLM) tools.
INTEGRATED AND OPEN
Let’s face it, systems and software development is complex, so you’re going to have to buy more than one tool. Each tool will probably work fine for its purpose, but eventually you’ll want to integrate information across tools. Point product integrations are brittle, so you’ll want to start with tools that are designed to work together. The CLM tools are a complete suite for defining, developing, testing, and managing software and systems development, all built on a common platform, the Jazz™ Platform, and released together, so there is no risk of integration breakage.
But what about other tools, such as existing investments or specialized tools for your environment? You want tools that are based on open industry standards, and that are designed to be integrated and extended. Dozens of integrations with the Jazz Platform already exist. You can create additional integrations on your own, or with help from Persistent.
AGILITY AT SCALE
Unless you work for a very small organization, you’ll need more than just basic agile collaboration, planning, and tracking. As systems scale, you might need these features:
- Traceability to requirements and design specifications
- Monitoring for compliance
- Tools that support collaboration and planning/tracking across geographically distributed teams, programs, and portfolios
- Web-based dashboards and reports that display up-to-the-minute status rolled up from multiple organizational levels with the ability to drill down for detail
- A standard process such as the Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe)
The CLM tools support all these capabilities and more.
ADAPTABLE
Effective organizations evolve their process and tool configurations over time. You might need to support formal, agile, and hybrid approaches. You need to adapt to process changes over time, including customizing existing data types and behaviors, and even adding new types and new behaviors. The CLM tools are highly customizable, and support processes that adapt over time.
EASY TO GET STARTED
The easiest way to get started with the CLM tools is with cloud-based previews. Previews are live environments with video walkthroughs. After you preview the products, consider a no-charge cloud or on-premise trial with assistance from Persistent. Note that the CLM tools are packaged with an enterprise-ready web server and database, and extensive guidance is available for installation, configuration, and deployment.
SUMMARY
Select tools that are integrated and extensible, based on open industry standards, and fully support the needs of large distributed organizations.
For more information, see these resources:
- Preview CLM
- Persistent’s CE-CLM services
- Get help from Persistent
The next article in this series discusses specific features of these tools that support Scrum and Lean.
ABOUT PERSISTENT SYSTEMS
Persistent Systems is the IBM partner that develops the CLM tools. We provide expert consultants that assist in agile and SAFe transformations and can help you customize your process and tools to fit your organization’s needs.
