Modernizing the application development and delivery lifecycle is top of mind for many organizations as they seek ways to meet the increasing demands for new applications and services. With speed and business alignment remaining the top app dev priorities in 2014 (see my blog post on this topic), we see a re-emergence in the importance of application change and configuration management, the adoption of modern development practices, and the visibility and transparency into the health and quality of application development deliverables.
One of the top “Aha!” moments from xChange13, Serena’s global user conference, was the positive reaction to the Dimensions CM 14 Preview Program, which allows customers to get an early look into the upcoming release of Serena’s process-based software change and configuration management solution. Now, six months later we have 130 preview program members across 95 companies, an incredible reflection of the interest in the best Dimensions release ever.
Preview Program members have had the opportunity to influence and contribute to product designs through Special Interest Groups, and track and validate implementation through regular product demonstrations from R&D. This has been a remarkable journey for our product development team and our Preview & Beta program members. We’ve been delighted with the contribution and feedback from so many customers.
Among the many innovative capabilities in the upcoming Dimensions CM release are:
- The ability to graphically show the health and quality of changesets within development streams (screenshot above).
- The ability to make informed decisions based on the status of CI builds and unit tests.
- A seamlessly integrated collaborative peer review.
- An intuitive developer experience.
As one of our Preview members stated upon seeing a preview of Dimensions CM 14 Beta 3:
“The visibility enables you to see if you are converging to quality or diverging from quality.”
Any SCM or Development practitioner will immediately recognize the value of simplicity over complexity, health and quality over failed builds and merges, and visibility and transparency over siloed tools and processes.
I highly recommend you check out the four short videos of new features in Dimensions CM 14 (links below), and invite you to register for the Preview Program to learn more, or simply to contact your Serena Account team.
