Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) tools are supposed to make our lives easier. They provide a one stop shop where we can author and store requirements, manage bugs or issues, manage projects and even manage the build and release of software. Some of them even act as Source Code Management tools as well, but are they truly helping to make our lives easier?
Individuals and interactions over processes and tools
In his recent post, Individuals and Interactions Over Processes and Tools, Jiten Vara touches on the role of tools in software development as a distraction from real face to face communication. I want to take this one step further and suggest that they actually encourage waste.
At a recent #LeanCoffee meetup, I proposed this topic. The general feeling was that people do have a tendency to revert to the tool as a way of communicating, rather than talking face to face. Each tool will offer its own way of facilitating that communication, usually via comments in tickets, bloated ticket descriptions and email notifications. All of which is written word; prone to error, a lack of information, or even worse, specification.
Is the tool itself really the root cause of this waste?
Environment is ‘the’ Factor
The root cause appears to be our working environment. The use of ALM tools for communication is just a symptom of a deeper issue, namely the way in which our working environments are set up. Are you able to simply turn around to talk to the rest of your development team? Are you co-located with your stakeholders and any other teams you may be dependent on?
If the working environment is not right, then people will start to use the tools available to them to communicate. Reference email as an example. A consequence of this behaviour will be creation of waste in your system. Ultimately, if you can be co-located, with a whiteboard and some post-it notes, you’ve got all you need for successful (waste free) communication.