Agile Solutions for Teams - Understanding Roles


Upside Research Paper:
Agile Calls for an
Agile Suite Solution

Upside ResearchThis Upside Research report highlights how senior developers and management can gain a higher level of control and productivity out of the entire software engineering organization by optimizing Agile software development through the use of professional Agile Suites.

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No matter what your role in the software development process, AgileCycle has something for everyone. AgileCycle is an integrated Agile Application Lifecycle Management (Agile ALM) solution offering SCM, Agile Lifecycle Management (including Agile project management), and Build & Release Management together. AgileCycle incorporates true best-of-breed tools from AccuRev, Rally Software, and UrbanCode in order to deliver a comprehensive Agile suite, designed specifically for today’s Agile development teams.

AgileCycle for the Executive

  • Single-vendor solution provides tight product integration and comprehensive services including deployment, training, and support, without single-vendor lock-in.
  • Flexible support for multiple process models which can be changed on the fly as you transition to Agile development and make mid-course adjustments.
  • Best-of-breed Agile software development tools ensure optimal Agile development processes are deployed, as well full compliance with these processes.
  • Complete management visibility of projects throughout the entire development process and into production
  • Improved team productivity utilizing Agile process and the best available development tools.
  • 100% ROI is typically achieved by teams of 25 to 500 developers in 6 to 12 months.
  • While AgileCycle is uniquely qualified to support Agile development, it also offers support for other methodologies. You can transition to Agile development all at once or a project at a time. Whatever your choice, you can use AgileCycle to manage, track, and measure all of your software development projects.
  • AgileCycle has many built-in features which automate compliance activities. These features include process visualization, change packages, separation of duties, physical security, standards based authentication and authorization, extensible controls, and support for audits.

AgileCycle for Engineering Management

  • Real-time dashboards let you drill down into stories and see progress on their associated tasks, tests or defects.
  • View feature completeness, defect status and failing tests across multiple projects and teams.
  • Get real-time access to automatic release metrics, burn down and cumulative flow charting.
  • Compare estimates to actuals for continuous improvement.
  • Quickly adjust scope to respond to changing priorities.
  • Understand all the priorities, work and commitments for the iteration.
  • Unify role-based silos into a collaborative Agile dashboard
  • Seamlessly unify technical and role-based silos into the collaborative dashboard for Agile development.
  • Setting up Continuous Integration is a simple process using AgileCycle. For example, you can set up a trigger such that on successful completion of a build and test cycle, all of the source file changes are automatically promoted to the next level in the development hierarchy, protecting the integrity of the next stream level.
  • Use of hosting (for APM) and optional replication (for SCM) enable real-time access to data for all users regardless of location.

AgileCycle for the Agile Developer

  • AgileCycle encourages refactoring with an all-writeable and all-real files SCM model, excellent rename support which works even across merges, and full merge and rename tracking. In addition, IDE plug-ins insure that all refactoring operations performed via an IDE are accurately reflected in the SCM system.
  • Get project management notifications via Rally, email and RSS.
  • Instantly communicate handoffs, blocks and readiness to synchronize teams.
  • Contribute to team discussions and instantly communicate with team members — without leaving the project management application.
  • Built-in support for Continuous Integration means you’ll get build and test feedback right away after every check-in.
  • Collaborate on project status with team members via most instant messaging applications.
  • Preflight builds. Run a “test build” of changes in the build environment without committing the changes to source. Preflight builds integrate code changes on the developer’s machine with a snapshot of the source code for the build.
  • Work by user story. All aspects of your work are managed by user stories instead of files.
  • Change packages ensure real change tracking, simplifying the application of your changes to multiple projects and releases.
  • Private workspaces enable you to use SCM on your own work for as long as you need without affecting other people.
  • Simple workflow – the only information you need to start work is the name of the stream your work is based on. A simple update gets you the files you need for your work and a simple promote puts your changes in the right place automatically.
  • Use your preferred development environment: Visual Studio, Eclipse, IntelliJ, Windows Explorer, vi, the command line, or the web.

AgileCycle for the Agile Tester

  • Innovative StreamBrowser allows you to see the status of all user stories directly from the SCM system. Easily produce builds for exploratory testing which contain just the stories that have passed automated testing.
  • Diff by issue to see which stories are in which builds and what their status is to optimize your testing strategy.
  • Integrations with leading testing tools. Out-of-the-box integrations with tools such as QuickTest Pro, Selenium, the xUnit set of tools, as well as code coverage and test lab management tools such as VMware Lab Manager.
  • Test reports integrated with build and release portal. Reports from all testing tools pulled into and made available through the integrated build and release portal to provide a single location for the entire application quality profile.
  • Test data warehouse. Integrated data warehouse stores all test data and makes it available for analysis and reporting. Metrics based on the data warehouse are available in the build and release portal.
  • Traceability. All test runs are traceable to the exact version of artifacts being tested and to the exact version of tests being run. If tests are also traceable to requirements, then full traceability from source code to requirements is achieved.
  • See the actual state of stories directly in the SCM system using the StreamBrowser.

AgileCycle for the Scrum Master

  • Iteration view for realtime project status.
  • Developers and testers can update their task status directly from their homepages, simplifying updates and ensuring accuracy.
  • A wide variety of charting and reporting including blockage, burn-down, burn-up and cumulative flow to track trends and spot potential problems.

AgileCycle for the Product Owner

  • Manage product and release backlogs that reflect the priorities of the business.
  • Use drag-and-drop release planning with high-level estimates to match resource capacity and historic velocity.
  • Combination of Streams and User Story based engineering ensure that iteration reviews are done using software that was built from a stream that contains only stories that pass all iteration review criteria.
  • Iteration view simplifies iteration reviews.
  • See the actual state of stories directly in the SCM system using the StreamBrowser.