IBM Aims to Speed Development with Collaboration

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Technology innovation isn’t always just about the code. The people and processes behind code development are critical to technology innovation.

IBM’s Rational division this week launched an updated product offering that helps enable the collaboration of stakeholders in the software development process. The new Collaborative Lifecycle Management (CLM) release is an application lifecycle management (ALM) product which brings together multiple components in the development process.

“CLM provides some advancements and it is at the heart of focusing on collaboration across the business,” Meg Selfe, VP, IBM Complex and Embedded Systems told InternetNews.com. “CLM provides real time planning that is directly linked to project execution.”

Selfe added that plans can be adjusted ‘on-the-fly’ in a structured way as development evolves. The goal is to continue to make sure that a given development effort delivers on the value proposition that it was originally intended to deliver. She added that the system will enable users to see the impacts that changes have on the whole project.

“So it lets you be creative while also having a structure that provides the ability to land projects on time and on budget,” Selfe said.

Part of the tracking capabilities of CLM is full traceability across the development lifecycle. The system ensures that all people on a development team have access to development artifacts as well as the correct context.

Selfe noted that the system has a key feature called active in-context collaboration that goes beyond spreadsheets and emails and provides a real-time collaboration environment.

“It allows for something called development intelligence, which lets users automate metrics with the right level of detail across a global enterprise,” Selfe said. “It has a management dashboard that provides a contextual view of the project.”

Continuous process improvement and built-in support for the SCRUM agile development methodology is also a key part of CLM. The CLM solution integrates with IBM’s Rational Requirements Composer, IBM Rational Team Concert and IBM Rational Quality Manager for a unified development platform. Selfe explained that CLM is a bundled offering bringing all the products together.

“Also if you already have some of these products in your environment already and you’re looking to integrate one or two, you have that flexibility as well,” Selfe said. “The way CLM works is it wraps around it a single of processes and governance.”

The CLM platform is based on IBM’s Jazz open development platform.

“As we advance the design of CLM and the community within Jazz the idea is for CLM to plug and play with other products,” Selfe said. “For now, what we’re announcing is the ability to integrate with our own products on an open standard platform.”

Sean Michael Kerner is a senior editor at InternetNews.com, the news service of Internet.com, the network for technology professionals.