The process of monitoring development through its entire path requires a multi discipline approach. What must never be forgotten is the "big picture," or the question of why this software project was approved and is being worked on. It doesn't matter if the package is very intricate with a lot of moving parts, or something straightforward, it needs to "just work," and to serve the greater good.

By beginning with the component design and requirements, and moving on toward system development and finally quality assurance and testing, application life cycle management can be achieved. The whole process is populated by people who are experts at their role in the development.

Application lifecycle management is a key tool for many reasons. A business in sales cannot function without the manager that runs the business. If you try to run a function without a software system in the background monitoring and managing it, you will be setting yourself up for failure. This system shows a manager his sales team's strengths and weaknesses. It also allows him to pass that information on to his manager's and the rest of the company.

To create this kind of system, you first determine what the system should do. These requirements will later form the basis of an agreement between both the system creators and the people purchasing these systems. As systems become more and more advanced, it takes longer to plan out what will be required. Once actual development is underway and planning is over, it takes a lot of time and money to start over from square one.

It is true that the initial stages of planning and development are crucial. Another important component is product testing or quality assurance. This is necessary to ensure that the system will truly be a good product. Fine tuned details are useless if they are attached to a program that just doesn't work. Every part of the software is tested rigorously by different groups of testers. Their part ensures that the system can truly fulfill the qualifications it was designed for.

The last concept to discuss is the idea of system maintainability. Over time, the tech world has and will continue to experience progress which leads to hardware and software products becoming obsolete. You certainly can't expect a ten year old computer to be able to use the latest software or peripherals. To take best advantage of the latest gear, one must plan to invest in developing or replacing a computer as time goes by.

Application lifecycle management uses many different approaches and disciplines to develop and deliver a software application to manage some of the essential functions of a business. This could be a complex system used to control the payroll and other financial functions of the industry. Alternatively, it could be a simple order tracking system for a branch office. How important is such a system? Consider a company and a manager who is in charge of a particular function of this enterprise, say, sales. In today's technically charged world, such a function without a software system to manage it would be unthinkable.