CM: THE NEXT GENERATION - Beyond CM to ALM

your dashboard: from product/release to product/release, from user to user, from project to project, etc. without having to leave your dashboard.  You should be able to place summary information in the format you want on the dashboard, and drill down into more and more detailed information.

You should have a slate of dashboards (and work stations) that are specific to the roles and tasks of those roles:  a peer review dashboard, a build comparison dashboard, time sheet summary dashboards with project roll-ups, development status for the current iteration and/or release, requirements traceabililty without a full-blown matrix to navigate, and so forth.

Your branching strategy is built into the 4G solution so that it tells you when you need to branch or merge - no more need to educate users on complex branching strategies.  It also has the capabilities necessary to reduce the need for branching dramatically, by eliminating the need to branch for purposes other than parallel release development.

Your ALM tool usage will always be in terms of a context which will allow the tool to pick up information automatically as you work and create new artifacts.  Traceability links become automatic, not unreliably filled by the end-user.

Administrative efforts such as consistent backups and stand-by disaster recovery become automated.  Eliminate the effort, eliminate the error.   Multiple site support approaches zero as the framework handles the job across all functions.

Information content becomes richer - not just data, navigation diagrams, etc.  Does the need for human direction, communication and leadership disappear?  Not at all.  It becomes much enhanced because everyone's on the same page, and the strategies and direction can be communicated instead of the details which are managed and communicated within the ALM solution.

Need more role specific attention from your ALM tool.  The 4G solution should allow you to make it so, quickly.  The goal of the 4G solution is to take the different roles and, one by one, improve productivity in them.  Fine tune, add missing capabilities.  Create useful dashboards to make the tool easy to use with minimal navigation necessary.

Something missing from your solution - add it on in time for next week's iteration or meeting.  The 4G ALM solution is extensible to encompass all related business processes from HR and Budgeting, to Sales and CRM.  Ideally, these extensions are made available to others for quick add-ons.

And as technology evolves, your tablet should be part of your ALM interface.  Your smartphone too, but perhaps quite differently.  I think it's too soon to tell what forms will be where.   You'll need keyboards for some things (e.g. raising a problem report), but generally not for query and navigation.  But will you use buttons or your accelerometer?

When to Switch from CM to ALM
Should we go and implement ALM tomorrow.  No.  Yesterday would be much better.  Can it be done that fast?  There are ALM tools that can be put in place quickly.  Evaluation.  Data population.  Evaluation.  Customization. Pilot training and use.  Evaluation.  Full cutover.  Those are the steps you should use.  Your vendor should be happy to help, at least up to the end of the second evaluation, at no cost.  If not, put them further down on the list.

It's hard to get a team to move from CM to ALM.  Why, because the part of the team using CM will not be the only beneficiaries of the ALM tool.  So they'll resist change.  Education is important - not what ALM is, or how the new tool works.  Instead:  We're having these problems... our ALM solution will address them... the benefits to you, in