Practice Active Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) for Every Application

This chapter explains how to practice Active Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) for every Application, rather than allowing Applications to drift.

Active vs. Passive Lifecycle Management

Application Lifecycle Management, as described in the chapter “Application Management vs. Application Portfolio Management vs. Application Lifecycle Management,” is the strategy and direction for a single Application across its life, owned by its Business Application Owner. Many Applications receive no such strategy at all. They are built or bought, deployed, and then left to run, with no one deciding whether to invest in them, maintain them, replace them, or retire them. That is passive neglect, and it is how enterprises end up with large numbers of aging, poorly understood, and expensive Applications.

Active ALM is the opposite. Every Application, whether custom-built, vendor-provided, or SaaS, has:

• A named Business Application Owner who owns its lifecycle strategy.

• A current lifecycle status, such as Proposed, Active, Deprecated, or Retired.

• A current Strategic Disposition: a declared intent for the Application’s future, such as invest, maintain, migrate, or retire.

• A scheduled review cadence at which its status and disposition are reconsidered.

Establish Active ALM

For each Application, have the Business Application Owner, with the IT Application Owner, Enterprise Architecture, and the business areas the Application serves, establish its lifecycle strategy and Strategic Disposition, and review them on a defined schedule and whenever significant change occurs, such as a vendor announcing end of support, a new business strategy, or a major Risk. Connect each Application’s strategy to the enterprise’s broader strategy management, so that Application decisions follow enterprise direction.

Document and Share the Lifecycle Strategy

Record the Application’s lifecycle status, Strategic Disposition, the rationale for them, and the date of the next review, in the Application Documentation and the Application Record. Record each review and its outcome.

Best Practice: Practice Active ALM for Every Application

It is a best practice to both establish and document the solution for every Application’s future: ensure each has a named Business Application Owner, a current lifecycle status, a current Strategic Disposition, and a scheduled review, and record them with their rationale.

Benefits: Active ALM ensures that every Application’s future is a deliberate decision rather than an accident of neglect. It lets the enterprise invest in Applications that matter, plan replacements before they become emergencies, and retire Applications that no longer earn their cost.

Connections to Related IF4IT Practices and Inventories

The Application Portfolio Management (APM) Best Practices addresses defining and enforcing an application lifecycle, defining and applying Strategic Dispositions, and connecting application lifecycle decisions to service continuity planning.