ALM User's Guide

Software development has some specific features that do not allow to use benefits of traditional Gantt charts:

• cycling - each requirement must pass a full technological cycle from analysis to creation of user documentation, therefore planning such microtasks is a very consuming process;
• complexity - lots of implicit dependencies do not allow to form a clear task chain for assignees, therefore working in team is much more efficient when achieving a project goal;
• changeability - detailed plans become obsolete at the moment of their creation, and workloads for maintaining a plan in the relevant state become very significant;

It makes sense to deliver software partially (in so-called increments). Time for implementing the next product increment is usually called a release or iteration. In Devprom ALM, releases are used for long term increments (months), and iterations for short term increments (weeks). Such scheme allows to combine releases with iterations. In this case, iterations detail the corresponding releases.

Usually iterations are sequential (they follow each other), whereas releases can be used concurrently: for example, the current and the future release. You can use iterations only, releases only, or combination of releases and iterations for different processes.

Releases and iterations have time boundaries and content - a suite of requirements and tasks to be implemented within these boundaries. If the actual date of release or iteration completion becomes later than the corresponding planned date, system highlights this release or iteration with red color, indicating a problem with their terms.

Terms of requirement implementation and task completion are determined by release and iteration deadlines. However, there are some cases when you can explicitly define certain deadlines for issues or tasks.

Milestones allow to settle an important project term and display it on the project plan.

The plan above displays an example of situation, when all iterations within release have the same type (the so-called sprints) - after the completion of each sprint we get a working product. Such scheme of work is not always comfortable and applicable. Iterations can be used as release stages, for example, first stage - product development, second stage - product testing (stabilization), etc.

The application automatically monitors relevancy of releases or iterations (sprints). As soon as all the corresponding stories, issues and tasks are completed, release or iteration is marked as completed and removed from the planning modules. In addition to this, you can explicitly remove release or iteration from the plan, dropdown lists, etc. To do this, set "Completed" flag on the release or iteration card. A bulk operation for controlling this flag is available in the Releases and Iterations modules.

The application automatically estimates start and finish dates of release or iteration. For example, if an iteration contains a first task that depends on a task from another iteration, the estimated start of iteration will depend on the finish date of such task. Finish estimation of iteration can be shifted relative to its target dates due to the task that depends on another tasks. You can visualize estimated start of iteration and finish estimation of iteration on the project plan by means of Forecast filter.