Consulting Services

What do you want to do? Who can do it best? How will you get it done?

If you don’t know where you are going, you might wind up someplace else.

– Yogi Berra, Legendary coach for the New York Yankees

The best tools in the world are useless if you don’t know what you want to do with them or how to deploy them in your environment. Innovative ideas need the right systems and tools in place to succeed. Gain traction faster by working with ALM’s leadership team and certified consultants, all ready to share our real-world experience and insight.

Whether you’re looking for short, focused engagements or longer consultation engagements to launch major initiatives, leveraging ALM’s talent, resources and experience can help you get where you want to go faster. Our core consulting team has more than 60 years of experience in systems engineering, working with many of the top Fortune 100 companies, and in more than a dozen countries around the world.

DevOps methodology and processes integrate the work of development and operations teams, whose goals can sometimes be at odds. It is a powerful and proven way to help teams quickly “shift left” to increase speed to delivery, quality, and efficiency. Deploying the right ALM/CLM and DevOps tools offers a reliable way to automate software development, delivery, and operation. This robust LEAN thinking approach allows development and operations teams to move forward simultaneously and quickly ─ without breaking anything. We incorporate 20 years of consulting experience using ALM tools with the latest thinking in DevOps to help you speed process improvements and outcomes.

The IBM DevOps (formerly UrbanCode) suite of tools provides the framework for automating software delivery using DevOps principles. Your applications are defined as sets of deployable components, enabling continuous delivery and reuse. Repeated deployments with proven processes build confidence in the deployment capability and help to expose any problems early on, so they can be corrected long before critical deployments to key environments. What used to take days or weeks can be done in minutes. With extensive experience using these tools across the lifecycle spectrum, from building the architecture for DevOps solutions to implementing them, we can help you achieve the fast start necessary to enter, maintain or dominate your share of the market.

Cloud-based solutions allow you to do more with less – less equipment, less staff, less time – and with fewer false starts. For lifecycle management, the cloud offers a more intelligent and cost-effective way to develop, test and deliver products faster and more efficiently than ever before. But knowing which tools and methodologies to use and how to deploy them to best advantage takes more than just a passing familiarity with the latest tools and thinking, it requires hands-on experience. Our experience spans a wide range of industries with demanding development and delivery timelines. It’s hard-earned wisdom that can benefit your organization, whether you are engaging us for consulting projects, training/master mentoring or both.

Model-based methodology like Rhapsody and Harmony offers significant engineering advantages. The challenge is choosing the most appropriate tools and then deploying and integrating them with the proper processes to manage all of the modelling artifacts that arise throughout the development lifecycle. In addition to MBSE consulting, we also provide training services, including master mentoring on: modelling language (UML/SysML), tools (Rhapsody) and process (Harmony SE/ESW). With experience across dozens of target architectures, we can help you fill knowledge gaps on both the tool and framework levels to complete your most challenging projects.

Are your processes  under construction or well established and mature? In either case, reviewing them and soliciting feedback from your users can reveal new opportunities.

  • Do your processes reflect the needs of your projects and skills of your users?
  • Could they be enhanced to be more effective?
  • Are your processes incomplete or missing?
  • Should your existing processes be improved to better support your current business needs?

Are your IBM ELM (formally Rational CLM) tools installed and configured to deliver lasting productivity and quality gains? A Usage Model Workshop conducted in parallel with a process review or improvement initiative can help you gain fresh perspective and develop an up-to-date roadmap for action.

  • Focused Workshop – Gather for one-half to two days, depending on the size and complexity of your project.
  • Roundtable Approach – Confidential sessions encourage candor and open exchange of ideas. This approach magnifies the discovery process, allowing key stakeholders to quickly identify, analyze and prioritize challenges, solutions and emerging opportunities.
  • Road Map – Leave with a roadmap based on your project and lifecycle process needs.
  • Instantiate the Plan – Use your team, our team, or a combination of both to meet your goals.

As you gain experience with the IBM ELM (formally Rational CLM) tools, you may look for ways to improve your ALM process. Our certified consultants are uniquely qualified to provide a concise, actionable plan for correcting any discrepancies found in the current implementation of your IBM ELM tool suite. Any necessary tweaks to the implementation or configuration can be performed by your team or ours.

The IBM ELM (formally Rational CLM) tool set is seldom introduced into a completely green field environment. Inevitably, legacy lifecycle information will exist in a variety of formats, including Microsoft® Word, Excel, Visio and other requirements tools.

We can help you:

  • Migrate Legacy Data – Into the appropriate IBM ELM tool quickly and efficiently
  • Choose the Best Tool – Using built-in tool functionality or our own custom tools
  • Do It Right and Fast – Transfer essential data quickly and correctly into the appropriate IBM ELM tool

The IBM ELM (formally Rational CLM) suite of tools is feature rich, so you can often use the built-in functionality or make minor configuration changes to achieve your goals. However,  there are times when your only option is to write a script.

With extensive experience in Java Scripting and DXL, we can help cover your custom scripting needs with a range of commercial models, from simple time hire to providing fully supported software. We also offer Java Scripting and DXL training and mentoring to help you develop your own Java Scripts and DXL.

Many IBM ELM tool users need to produce tailored and complex documentation. If your solution of choice is IBM Rational Publishing EngineTM, we can help you set and configure templates and specifications. We can also assist with migration from earlier products, such as DocExpress and WEXP.

Sometimes you just need a capable extra hand on deck to ensure that key project milestones are met. We can supply experienced certified IBM ELM tool consultants to help cover peak demand times, for a few days – or for longer engagements.