While the Agile Manifesto might value individuals and interactions over processes and tools, modern product delivery SDLCs are automated. Unfortunately, there are a lot of tools and vendors creating confusion as they compete for a share of your wallet. Here is a quick checklist to evaluate what you have and what you really need.
There are many competing models and ways of categorizing the product and application delivery and management tools out there. In many cases, such as XebiaLab’s beautiful (if slow to load) Periodic Table, they focus on a particular area such as DevOps. Our research has shown us that your tooling decisions must consider the whole toolchain in the context of a modern SDLC.
When you consider how you will automate and integrate your SDLC here are the different categories of tools you need to consider:
Tools alone are not going to make your delivery and management practices more efficient. However, they are partners in the people, process, and tool equation. You can’t deal with these factors one at a time. An integrated approach is required because it is actually harder to introduce tools into an established practice after the fact.