From what I can see, increased velocity is good news for two professions – bobsled crews and dev/test professionals. It’s pretty obvious what it means to the former – but what about Micro Focus customers?
For them, improving delivery velocity means removing process inefficiencies from every aspect of the testing and delivery process.
Such as?
Developers using Micro Focus Silk Test add test automation into continuous integration processes. They get faster feedback – and resolve issues quicker. The code checked in at the end of the day automatically kicks off overnight test runs, and get results that create trouble tickets by the following morning.
Micro Focus Deployment Automation eliminates error-prone manual efforts by introducing a string of DevOps-style ‘abilities’: predictability, traceability, and speedability. So I made that last word up, but as this customer went from taking 10 days to a few hours for database provisioning, I may be on to something here.
All good – for now. But we live in a constantly-shifting landscape. How do software organizations continually remove inefficiencies when business priorities change, customer needs evolve – and the competition surprises you with something out of left field?
The burden of managing, analyzing, and understanding the impact of changes typically falls on the program or dev manager, who must continually align resources to tasks based on new priorities. Or maybe it will be the business team initiating a change request who must first assess risk. Either way it demands greater efficiencies in the upstream dev tools that feed the Agile backlog.
Agile meets real world. Who wins?
Agile needs communication and collaboration. The vision is of long- established siloes torn down in a sweep of good intentions. The reality, though, is often one of people remaining firmly in their siloes, working with their specialized tools creating different asset types. And that isn’t the only cause of division.
While program managers deal in themes and stories, developers work with tasks, making sure the code they check in can be built, tested and installed. Simultaneously, test teams work with scripts for functional, regression and performance testing. Business teams talk in terms of broad requirements that don’t resemble the minute tasks required to execute. Successful change management requires a clear understanding of the inherent complexities and interdependencies of software development. It’s a pretty fragmented picture.
Get Rhythm
That’s where Micro Focus Rhythm stands alone. This planning and tracking solution for Agile software provides the data hub connecting the Agile development process to source code, defects, and other tools within the software development lifecycle.
Imagine an Agile planning tool that links source code to specific stories and tasks, so source code changes can align with the backlog sprint. This way, everything is traceable back to the original development assets. Test assets and business requirements are linked to stories and tasks, giving Agile teams the full picture, and helping them to define, organize and track their work. That’s Rhythm.
Within the sprint backlog, Rhythm tracks interdependencies of stories and related assets in the product backlog, displaying both upstream and downstream work flows, aiding impact analysis across the delivery ecosystem.
Rhythm – in tune with software development
One definition of rhythm is of a ‘strong, regular repeated pattern of movement’. And that’s just how we see Rhythm adding to the process. Agile works best when everything moves in a nice even flow, when people know what they’re doing and are all work together in the context of successful software development.
With Atlas requirements management, Rhythm Agile project management, StarTeam and AccuRev change management, Silk test automation and management, and Deployment Automation, Micro Focus establishes two-way communication among the diverse tools of the delivery process.
Product quality and process efficiency improves when business and delivery teams have full visibility and understand the context of what they are doing. Schedule risk is cut. Rhythm works with your stuff, too – it supports many third party integrations. That way you connect the Agile development process you want to the source code, defect, requirement and other software development tools you already have.
So, use Micro Focus Rhythm to help build the DevOps toolchain that best fits your organization. And add some speedability to your development process – try it out here for 30 days for nothing more than some contact details….
