Tuesday 25 August 2015

5 Vital Factors That Must Be Considered When Selecting a Release Management Tool

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Release management tools are in no short supply in the market. The process of selecting one to use in a business is therefore a challenge most of the time. You will find yourself totally spoilt for choice when it comes to picking the perfect one for your business. Use of outdated IT solutions in a business can be detrimental to the growth of a business. As such, each business owner has to strive to make sure that the employees get the latest and finest developments that enable growth of the business. This is where the release management tools come in.

What exactly is release management?

Before choosing a tool, it is important to understand what the tools can or cannot do for your business. Generally, release management is a process of software engineering that focuses on the development, testing and the process of deployment of software releases. It also involves support of software releases. This practice of release management combines the technical knowhow of the systems development life cycle (SDLC) with the general business importance on project management. Experience in IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL) practices also comes in handy in this process.

When selecting a tool…

Before outlining a few vital factors to consider in the selection of release management tools, it is important to understand that you cannot establish these processes alone. Release management processes intricately tie with the objectives, strategies, governance and change management aspects of the organization. Their formation has to be jointly with the Centre of Excellence as well as the steering committee in order to make certain that everyone is one the same page. Therefore, when you are selecting a release management take into consideration:

1.       Business objectives

A business without goals is like a journey without a destination. Just as it is not possible to drive around aimlessly, the business objectives are of great importance in making sure that your business performs at its best. When you do not achieve a goal, you will know that some business practices are wrong. The release management tool you get should facilitate the achievement of you businesses goals.

2.       Presence of another tool

Is there another tool in existence already perhaps the force.com migration toolkit?Before you invest in a new release management suite, you should make sure that your business does not have one that is already in use. This is particularly so in the case of large enterprises where there are independent departmental operations such that teams may not know whether or not the other departments in the organization are using the same tool. Internal communication helps a lot in this step.

3.       Training

How much training is necessary in order to use the tool? Some tools are just too complicated to use even after training. The tool you get should be user-friendly and at the same time managing to fulfill its tasks.

4.       Reporting method

Does the release management tool have a flexible reporting scheme that enables tracking of operations? This information will be important for future deployments or improvements.

5.       Costs

What are the costs involved in procurement and set up of the tool? Everyone will always want a tool that produces a good ROI for business.

 



from Darlene Milligan http://ift.tt/1hbHpNW via transformational marketing
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