An application’s lifecycle is characterized by a three significant phases. It begins with a concept; the idea to create a particular piece of software that performs a certain function. Once the idea has been put into action, the application is in development. The piece of software is being built, developed, and will soon be available for use doing whatever it is that the concept originally intended. Finally, after the application has been developed (which is a whole other discussion), it’s ready for deployment. With most applications, once they are deployed and out in the world, issues and bugs arise and ideas for updates are generated. When this happens, your software goes back to development (and all that entails), to start over again.

The process of managing this cycle is called Application Lifecycle Management, or ALM. ALM links business management (looking out for time, money, function, market and practicality) with software development (developing, testing, tracking and fixing). This is all made possible by a suite of tools and applications that both facilitate and integrate the two groups. A common collection of ALM tools include requirements management, testing, issue tracking, and time tracking. ALM tools should encourage communication between all teams involved in both the business and the software development sides.

They should also act as a reference for business and IT, to check that both are on the same page throughout the software lifecycle.