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Solutions for Accommodating Change


By Carol Weiszmann & By Susan Messenheimer
November 1, 2007 — 
The march to a more orderly change management world is inevitable; the approaches and solutions numerous. We asked several of the top vendors for their take on the best way to achieve five of the most frequently sought-after problem-solving technologies.

FASTER ITERATIONS
The adoption of iterative development techniques is fast becoming widespread. The issue for many enthusiasts is: Does this mean more control or less is required? Serena Software’s view is that far from being process-free, iterative development demands more control. But the trick, according to David Parker, Serena’s director of product marketing, is to ensure that this change control is not intrusive. Enterprises must be able to manage and track the task flow and issue backlogs, yet the individual developer’s experience of using these tools should be transparent. Serena’s approach, said Parker, means a developer working in his IDE never even leaves his IDE to use Serena’s tools. At the same time, his manager can achieve the control and visibility needed to ensure that the project is on track. Auditors, he added, are happy as well, since compliance is automated.

RAPID DECISION-MAKING
If rapid decision-making is one of your organizational goals, you’ll want to make sure you can easily and quickly check the status of, and get the answers to, some key questions—such as, “Is this feature implemented?” or “Has this change been checked in?” or “Have the components in that module been reviewed?” Seapine Software’s solution, said director of strategy Tom Carozza, uses a completely customizable workflow that allows users to define it to suit whatever methodology they choose. “The great side effect of this is that it’s easy to quickly look and see the status of anything in the system —are all answered with a quick visual check rather than a deep investigation.”

CODE REUSE AND COMPLEX LICENSING ISSUES
One of the most frustrating tasks for developers has to be tracking code across multiple products. This is furthered complicated when an individual product is composed of subproducts. The solution embraced by Neuma Technology is to allow code to be shared across multiple products, each tracked in the same repository, said Joseph Farah, president and CEO. Where a product itself is composed of subproducts, Neuma’s CM+ will track hierarchical relationships, permitting questions such as, “Where is this sub-product used?”

PRODUCT-LINE MANAGEMENT
To enhance product-line management, solutions should capture and validate project requirements, translate these into tasks that are assigned to individual team owners, and track the tasks throughout the project. As requirements change, the impact should ripple through the SCCM infrastructure. That’s the approach Serena believes is the most logical, and it delivers, said Parker: “full traceability, from the capture of the requirement through to the delivery of the ultimate application.”

COLLABORATION AND COMMUNICATIONS
Major pain points when fostering true collaboration and communication include keeping distributed teams in sync in near time, regardless of location and time zone, and management of online discussion threads. The solution offered by Borland Software’s StarTeam is to “make innovative use of remote caching agents,” said Corn? Human, Borland’s product marketing manager, change management solutions. Online discussion threads, for example, are stored as part of the SCM repository alongside all associated assets, such as code and documents. —Carol Weiszmann and Susan Messenheimer


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