ALM Octane with Agile and waterfall
ALM Octane can be used with whichever development methodology your teams use.
Agile development flow
If your team uses the Agile methodology, use ALM Octane to manage the development process.
Most Agile development processes follow a standard flow:
On a day-to-day basis, the process looks more like this:
This process repeats with continuous delivery of your application.
The first step in any Agile development involves planning. Because Agile focuses on continuous delivery, clear planning is essential.
In ALM Octane, do the following in the Agile plan stage:
Before beginning work, it is important to define the workflow. This lets you specify and enforce:
Specify rules for completion of a phase, when an item is complete, and so on. For details on setting workflow phases, see Set up workflow phases and transitions. For details on using rules, see Set up rules. |
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To commit to completing work, you need to know how much work a team or individual can finish. When you create a team, the workspace admin specifies:
For details on planning velocity and capacity, see Balance release and sprint workloads. |
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Before and throughout the development process, the product owner maintains the product backlog. The Backlog is fluid and adjusts to changing priorities. In ALM Octane, you maintain the backlog in the Backlog module:
For details on using the Backlog, see Backlog management. |
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While maintaining the Backlog, the product manager ranks Backlog items. Correct rank ensures that development teams select the highest priority items when planning. ALM Octane helps you rank the Backlog:
For details on ranking, see Rank the Backlog. For details on WSJF fields, see Rank with WSJF attributes. |
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Plan releases and sprints |
After you create the Backlog, plan each release and sprints. ALM Octane helps you assign Backlog items to releases, sprints, and teams:
For details on working with release and team assignments, see Set and manage release plans. For details on the release buckets, see Backlog planning buckets. |
Assign items to a person |
During the sprint planning meeting, assign work items to a user. Assign items in ALM Octane:
For details on managing a team's backlog, see Manage the team backlog. For details on the team planning buckets, see Team planning buckets. |
After you decide what to deliver, you must develop the assigned features and stories. In ALM Octane you use this process:
Move backlog items through the workflow |
As you work, it is important to update progress. This is especially true if you use daily scrum meetings where you discuss what was done and what to do next. While working, update the phase of the backlog item:
Updating the item's phase ensures you have an accurate reflection of progress. For details on workflow phases, see Advance the phase of an item. |
Create tasks |
When working on a backlog item, it is helpful to break down the item into manageable tasks. To do that, ALM Octane provides a task list and task board to manage tasks:
For details on managing tasks, see Work on your stories. |
Track individual progress to make sure everyone is progressing according to plan:
For details on tracking release progress, see Analyze release progress. For details on the Dashboard, see Use the ALM Octane Dashboard. For details on the Board View, see Use the Board View. |
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Track release progress |
Check overall release progress for each team and its team members. Add widgets to the Dashboard, such as the Stories Cumulative Flow graph, Burn Up and Burn Down widgets, Velocity Tracking, and so on |
To deliver high-quality features, you must test delivered content in parallel with development. In ALM Octane there are multiple steps to build a test process:
Add tests to Backlog items |
For each backlog item (including epics and features), add tests. For details on adding tests, see Create manual tests or Create Gherkin tests. |
Run tests |
Run tests in many ways:
For details, see Run manual and Gherkin tests and Run automated tests from ALM Octane. |
Add and analyze build processes on CI/CD servers |
An important of testing is ensuring new features do not break existing functionality. To do this, add tests to your CI server builds. Then create a pipeline in ALM Octane that represents the steps of the build. When the pipeline and build run, view the details and results of the build jobs and tests. The Pipelines module displays all details on the build processes:
For details, see Pipelines: CI server and SCM system integration. |
Analyze test results |
After running a test, view the test results. For manual and Gherkin tests or automated tests included in a pipeline, ALM Octane Help displays the test results in the test run. For tests run outside ALM Octane upload test results to ALM Octane. Once the test results are available, view the results directly inside the ALM Octane test. For details, see Stop the run and see results, Send automated test run results to ALM Octane, or Analyze automated test run results. |
Open defects |
If you find issues or errors in your application, open defects to resolve these issues. This lets you use the errors and issues to improve the development quality. Furthermore, add the defects to the Backlog to include the defect in release planning. Open defects from:
For details on adding defects, see Manage defects or Report defects during a run. |
View application quality |
As you develop, check the application's quality. This information is displayed according to test results and defects. Use the ALM Octane widgets to view this information in:
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Analyze release quality |
Analyze the quality of the current release. Filter the widgets in the Overview tab of the Backlog and Quality modules by release. For details on configuring dashboard widgets, see Use the ALM Octane Dashboard. |
After you decide you have completed all assigned backlog items, you are ready to release the application to customers.
Use the feedback from these releases to inform future planning.
Hold a retrospective to present what was done and review the release or sprint. In the Team Backlog module, use the Retrospective area to summarize the sprint or release and address unfinished items.
For details on the retrospective area, see Perform sprint closure and retrospective.
Traditional waterfall development flow
If your team uses a traditional development methodology, such as waterfall, use ALM Octane to manage the development process.
The traditional development process follows a structure like this:
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Requirements: List the requirements of what the product needs to do. This may or may not include a list of features.
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Design: Define how the requirements work inside the product.
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Implementation: Develop the product.
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Testing/Verification: The quality assurance team tests and verifies the planned features. Open defects for those problems encountered in testing.
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Release/maintenance: Release the finished and approved product.
We recognize that not all traditional software development models follow such a linear progression, However, these framework do keep a rigid separation between development phases.
ALM Octane helps you manage the development processes through each of these stages:
In traditional software development, you define the requirements before beginning any work. This lets you know exactly what your product needs to do for customers.
Also, you define the timeline and resources to see what it is possible to finish..
ALM Octane lets you do this planning before beginning work on the release.

When beginning development, you have a general idea of what the application should do. You may know what tasks the application can perform, what things the user may want to do, and so forth.
To help define requirements, use the Requirements module to describe the intended functionality:
For details, see Define requirements.

While adding requirements, create application modules. These application modules are functional areas of the product. Application modules enable you to see application health and progress as you proceed through development and testing.
Create and view application modules in the Quality module:
After you create the application module hierarchy, associate features, tests, and defects with each application module.
For details on application modules, see Quality management.

Create the timelines for the product releases.
In ALM Octane, the shared space admin or workspace admin creates the timeline in the Settings area:
For details on defining releases and release timelines, see Set up a release.

You must also plan the workforce. In ALM Octane, the workspace admin adds teams, adds team members, and assigns them to releases:
For details on creating and assigning teams, see Manage teams.
Once you have planned requirements, releases, and teams, begin developing the application. This involves creating the backlog of work items and assigning these work items.
Create the Backlog |
First, create the product backlog to organize the development process. In ALM Octane, you maintain the backlog in the Backlog module. Use the Backlog module to:
For details on using the Backlog, see Backlog management |
Plan releases and sprints |
After you create the Backlog, plan each release and sprints. ALM Octane helps you assign Backlog items to releases, sprints, and teams:
For details on working with the release and team assignments, see Set and manage release plans. For details on the release buckets, see Backlog planning buckets. |
Assign items to a person |
During the sprint planning meeting, assign work items to a user:
For details on managing a team's backlog, see Manage the team backlog. For details on the team planning buckets, see Team planning buckets. |
After you decide what to deliver, you must develop the assigned features and stories. In ALM Octane you use this process:
Move backlog items through the workflow |
While working, update the phase of the backlog item:
Updating the item's phase ensures you have an accurate reflection of progress. For details on workflow phases, see Advance the phase of an item |
Create tasks |
When working on a backlog item, it is helpful to break down the item into manageable tasks. To do that, ALM Octane provides a task list and task board to manage tasks:
For details on managing tasks, see Work on your stories. |
Track task progress |
Track individual progress to make sure everyone is progressing according to plan:
For details on tracking release progress, see Analyze release progress. For details on the Dashboard, see Use the ALM Octane Dashboard. |
Track release progress |
Check overall release progress for each team and its team members. Add widgets to the Dashboard, such as the Stories Cumulative Flow graph, Burn Up and Burn Down widgets, and so on. Later in the release, add the Release Forecast widget to the Dashboard to see how ALM Octane predicts you will finish the planned Backlog items. |
To deliver high-quality features, you must test delivered content. In ALM Octane there are many ways to ensure you perform adequate testing:
Add tests to Backlog items |
For each backlog item (including epics and features), add tests. For details on adding tests, see Create manual tests or Create Gherkin tests. |
Run tests |
Run tests in many ways:
For details on running tests, see Run manual and Gherkin tests and Run automated tests from ALM Octane. |
Analyze test results |
After running a test, view the test results. For manual and Gherkin tests or automated tests included in a pipeline, ALM Octane Help displays the test results in the test run. For tests run outside ALM Octane upload test results to ALM Octane. Once the test results are available, view the results directly inside the ALM Octane test. For details, see Stop the run and see results, Send automated test run results to ALM Octane, or Analyze automated test run results. |
Open defects |
If you find issues or errors in your application, open defects to resolve these issues. This lets you use the errors and issues to improve the development quality. Furthermore, add the defects to the Backlog to include the defect in release planning. Open defects from:
For details on adding defects, see Manage defects or Report defects during a run. |
View application quality |
As you develop, check the application's quality. This information is displayed according to test results and defects. Use the ALM Octane widgets to view this information in:
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Analyze release quality |
Analyze the quality of the current release. Filter the widgets in the Overview tab of the Backlog and Quality modules by release. For details on configuring dashboard widgets, see Use the ALM Octane Dashboard. |
After you decide you have completed all assigned backlog items, you are ready to release the application to customers.
After a release, it is common to continue maintenance of released versions. To assist, ALM Octane lets you:
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Run tests against any version of your application
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Create a pipeline for previous versions which enable you to build and test fixes of that version. For details on pipelines, see Pipelines: CI server and SCM system integration
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Create dashboard widgets for past releases of the product to see the quality of that release.
See also: