The Seapine View

Jeff Amfahr, our director of product management, was interviewed by CMC Media’s Patrick Egan for their Agile Journal. Watch as Jeff talks about Seapine ALM 2010.1’s new features, including Agile support, and what’s next for Seapine.

I have updated our labs page in regards to integration with Microsoft’s Team Foundation Server (TFS).  Even though this is not an ‘out of the box’ supported integration, you do have several options.

We had two sample scripts on how TFS could be integrated with TestTrack Pro and TestTrack TCM. I have updated them so they can be used out of the box. Previously they had connection information hard coded, which meant you had to change the source code and recompile in order to use them. I have also added a new article.
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As a consultant, I have been exposed to many different development methodologies and processes. In most cases, assignments are performed by a person that is aware of staff resources and distributes tasks according to the availability of these resources.
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We recently released a new requirements management product, TestTrack RM.

The early feedback on the product has been great. TestTrack RM is proving to be a valuable addition to the TestTrack family, which also includes TestTrack Pro (defect management) and TestTrack TCM (test case management).

While TestTrack RM provides many benefits on its own, the real power comes when it is used as an integrated solution with the other TestTrack applications. For example, you can easily determine if you have proper test coverage by ensuring that a test case has been created for every requirement. You can easily flag a test case if a requirement has changed, avoiding testing stale data and wasting time and money. For this post, I want to focus on one of the biggest benefits: complete traceability.
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If you use Surround SCM or any other robust software configuration management tool (gasp!), chances are you are using branches to manage your software development process. Depending on your branch strategy, you may find yourself with a defect that exists across multiple branches. There are many ways to manage this situation, the best one for you will depend on your environment and needs.

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One of the key strengths of Seapine’s suite of tools is that they can adapt to many methodologies. One of the tasks that I am often faced with is adapting our tools to a client’s methodology. Some clients use the tried and true waterfall method, others use SCRUM, others use a combination of various methodologies, while other clients don’t use a specific methodology (which is why they asked for our help in the first place).

Which one is the most popular? Does it depend on the size of the team? Does it depend on the industry?
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SD Times recognized Seapine in the application lifecycle management and software configuration management categories of their annual SD Times 100. Of 78 vendors spread across 14 categories, we were one of only 12 vendors recognized in more than one category.

Thank you Seapine customers for helping us achieve six consecutive years of success in the SD Times 100!

“I think we’re in flight-to-quality mode,” said Michael Gross, broker and futures analyst with OptionSellers.com. His quote came from a recent article in the Wall Street Journal where he was referring to the fact that gold futures rose as the market bought the metal as a safe haven against troubled markets. Many software development organizations are also in a “flight-to-quality” mode as they focus on software quality as a safe haven in regards to their customer loyalty strategies.

Seapine Software recently released the quality-ready assessment. The QRA is a high-level evaluation tool that helps develop­ment organizations measure the state of their software quality-readiness in four key ALM competency areas. Those areas include tracking, testing, change, and automation. Nearly 1,000 individuals have already completed the QRA survey, and according to the results 65 percent of the respondents stated that building quality into their software was either a top or high priority. In addition, the survey found that the top two factors driving organizations to focus on application lifecycle management solutions are:

• The need to reduce risk by preventing poor quality from impacting customer satisfaction
• The need to quickly respond to customer requests and requirements

Customer loyalty is hard won, which means software companies cannot risk the release of a buggy product. Yet development organizations still struggle to achieve quality and deliver products on time and within budget as the research also indicates that more than one-third of companies completed their application development on time and within budget less than 75 percent of the time. If these organizations release once a year, that means they are only on time and within budget once every four years.

For more details on this important topic I recommend that you download and read “Identifying the Cost of Poor Quality.”