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by Lawrence S. Gould > Contributing Editor ALM, says Azof, is "the process by which information technology and software development organizations create, deploy, and operate software over its full lifecycle." While product design for physical things and software things is increasingly computerized, the processes are diferent. Product development, says Rizzo, typically follows a "cascading waterfall approach": product is conceived based on information from the marketplace, which is translated into customer requirements, and then into technical specifcations; designed through a series of steps involving creation, refnement, testing, and validation; produced using various manufacturing methods; and then serviced (including repair, maintenance, and waste management), which is increasingly being considered early in product development. Software development used to follow the waterfall approach, says Rizzo, but now it includes application project and portfolio management, project inception and requirements gathering, requirements management, design and use-case analysis, coding, testing and quality assurance, build release and deployment, and ongoing software maintenance. Software development is very much an iterative process consisting of "short, rapid `sprints' with requirements changing frequently and many ongoing revisions," says Rizzo. Blame mechatronics. No, even before that: Blame the increase in software in today's vehicles, whether frmware, application software, embedded systems, or mechatronics. "Software is quickly surpassing hardware's dominance in product development, particularly within technologically complex products and industries, such as automotive, aerospace/defense, and medical device manufacturing," according to Stefano Rizzo, senior vice president strategy and business development for Polarion Software ( polarion.com ). Automakers using product lifecycle management (PLM) for managing the lifecycles of vehicles cannot be faulted for turning to these same systems for software development. It makes sense to use something PLM-like to hasten time-to-market, improve the efciency t The Polarion Connector for Team- center integrates ALM and PLM, which provides easy access to product and process data and end-to-end traceability for complex, multi-system product development. PLM for managing software is not PLM. It's ALM, application lifecycle management. of software development, solidify the collaboration between everyone involved in software development (including requirements specifcation, coding, testing, deployment, and continual software maintenance), and meet regulatory requirements. One problem: PLM is not efcient at managing software development. Says Michael Azof, principal analyst at the London-based Ovum Consulting ( ovum.com ), "In product development, software changes are far more frequent than hardware changes and keeping track of which frmware belongs to which hardware component turns into a monumental exercise in version tracking and traceability." Meet ALM, application lifecycle management. AD&P; > November 2015 > FEATURE > Introducing Application Lifecycle Management > Lawrence S. Gould > lsg@lsgould.com 44