ALM User's Guide

It's a convenient way to control the work progress using several parameters simultaneously:

• color of cards reflects the task importance or type;
• vertical columns reflect implementation progress of the task or requirement;
• cards can be grouped by teams, assignees, deadlines, priority, releases, iterations, etc. using rows.

We have prepared several standard boards for each standard process which you can adapt for your own tasks and save them as an independent module including all these settings.

There are two main technological schemes of development:

• In sequential scheme (Kanban, Waterfall) each requirement (or group of requirements) sequentially passes through all stages from design to documenting, and project participants do their part of work on each stage.
• In parallel scheme (Scrum, Scrumban) work on a requirement is decomposed to separate tasks for each member of project team. Tasks can be performed sequentially or concurrently - a requirement will not reach the next production stage until all its tasks are completed.

Thus, we can control and monitor:

1. the progress of custom requirements implementation (using the query board or the story board);
2. in the case of concurrent work on a custom requirement, we can also monitor the task board which displays the progress of performing tasks relating to requirements.

In the case of a sequential scheme process of requirement implementation is represented in the form of stages (columns on the board) which reflect your development technology. A requirement can be located only on one stage at the moment, e.g., on the analysis or testing stage. When the current stage is completed, e.g., the detailed system requirements are prepared, the source primary requirement is transferred to the next stage and so on. An example of such scheme is "Product maintenance” scheme based on Kanban.

Sequential processes are not always convenient. Many software development tasks can be performed concurrently, e.g., design, development, and preparation of test documentation. High complexity of tasks can cause their return to previous stages when the assignee is already occupied with the next task. In this situation, it's more convenient to give team the possibility to define amount of work and the sequence of its execution independently. You can achieve this by decomposing requirement into tasks. An example of such scheme are "Product search" and "Product development” processes.

On the above scheme from "Product search” process, the story board is used for planning the project. Operational task management (requirement implementation) is carried out on the task board.

Limitations