Collaboration tools for software development and testing are popular given they keep developers abreast of the process and enable them to work together. But part of an in-house software development project is ensuring its progress aligns with business objectives. Collaboration between IT and the business has typically been an operational process written on paper or perhaps even illustrated in a flowchart, but IBM recently released a set of software, Rational Quality Management Portfolio, to help IT mitigate business risk while testing the software that’s been built.
Who knew IT would need technology to collaborate with the business? So instead of having software development and testing proceed on its merry own while occasionally peppered with face-to-face meetings with line of business leaders, it’s probably not a bad idea, in the name of true team spirit, to include the business in software development collaboration tools as well.
The same objectives will be met: ensuring the project is on track and has not swayed from business goals. The difference is that assessment of business risk will now be more intimately tied with the software creation process. The ability to align a project with the business is of paramount importance considering how many IT projects fail because of misaligned goals.
So if that manual process can somehow be automated into a required step as part of a software tool, then perhaps more IT projects will be seen to fruition and less IT spending and resources wasted.