ALM CONNECT EXECUTIVE DAY
VDC was excited to attend the ALM Connect Executive Day, which was run in parallel to EclipseCon 2013 in Boston this week. The objective of the executive day, to provide a platform for software delivery executives to discuss modern ALM practices in the context of business problems, is tightly aligned to our Software & System Lifecycle Management Tools research.
The day brought together leaders from ALM suppliers, ISVs and consulting firms to discuss how ALM is evolving in response to the changing software delivery environment. The M2M Embedded Software team investigates many of the same questions ALM Connect aimed to answer such as:
- How does ALM work in the world shifting from 'Systems of Record' to systems of engagement?
- How does SaaS, Mobile and open source change ALM?
- What does Agile mean to ALM?
- What does complex sourcing do to ALM?
Among the ALM Connect Executive Day highlights:
“What ALM knowledge you can expect from Computer Science Graduates” with Gary Pollice, Professor of Practice, WPI Computer Science Department. A great description about what you should look for in a recent computer science graduate and, more importantly, why.
“Managing Complex Supply Chains with ALM” with Mik Kersten, CEO, Tasktop. Mik demonstrated how Tasktop is helping large corporations work through the mess they’ve made of their development lifecycle through piecemeal tool adoption at team levels, corporate expansion, mergers and other realities of business as usual.
“Scrum - Success Ends with Middle Management” with Ken Schwaber, the Co-creator of Scrum and CEO of Scrum.org. Ken stressed the importance of individuals and interactions over processes and tools as organizations look to create more agility. Also presented was the “Agility Index”, a means to track progress towards of process improvement goals.
“Future of ALM Panel” with Sam Guckenheimer, MS Visual Studio; Jeffery Hammond, Forrester Research; Raziel Tabib, HP; Mik Kersten, Tasktop; Mike O'Rourke, IBM Rational. The panel gave us a lively discussion on a number of topics including developer resistance to change, estimates on the enterprise ALM market size, and ongoing heterogeneity and integration challenges of ALM.
More information on ALM Connect Executive Day can be found here.
ECLIPSECON BOSTON 2013
We also made time to visit some booths and sit in on a few presentations of EclipseCon.
The focus of the open source Eclipse community is software development tools as well as the intersection of tools, process, and new business models. As more and more organizations view their ability to manufacture software as a competitive advantage, ALM is becoming a vital business process.
Among the EclipseCon highlights:
CollabNet’s Laszlo Szalvay presentation, "Making Agile ALM Work in Regulated Industries”: The discussion focused on some of the uncertainty towards Agile that remains in highly regulated industries such as Finance, Telecommunications, Pharmaceuticals and Government. VDC sees the same concerns about control and increased developer autonomy in the embedded industry. Likewise, we share the opinion that Agile can succeed in these industries with the use of the right processes and tools.
The session entitled, “High Quality Agile - Incorporating Quality into Your Agile Process and Organization Means Working Faster and Smarter,” by Lorinda Brandon of SmartBear Software. Lorinda outlined some best practices for maintaining high quality as an organization moves towards a continuous software delivery business model.
More information on EclipseCon 2013 Boston can be found here.
About VDC Research Group
VDC Research Group (VDC) provides market research and advisory services to the world's top technology executives. Our clients rely on us to provide actionable insights to support their most important strategic decisions. The firm is organized around four practices, each with its own focused area of coverage including: automatic identification and data collection, embedded hardware, embedded software and enterprise mobility.
Our market research is the basis for the many ways that VDC can help our clients to grow their business. We offer a range of services designed to meet their specific corporate development, opportunity assessment and lead generation needs. Founded in 1971, the firm is located in the Boston area. Please visit our Web site at www.vdcresearch.com to learn more.
VDC has been providing embedded systems market intelligence for over 20 years.
Comments