Across industries, software is central to the translation of ideas into reality. By embodying the business processes and intellectual capital that support and different a business, software has become a cornerstone of strategy execution, creating greater levels of responsibility for the CIO and the IT organization. As a result, the process of softwar development needs to be governed as one would govern any other business process to ensure business alignment, control and return on investment.

IBM Rational provides solutions for organizations that need to better govern the business process of software and systems development. The software delivery process - translating business strategy into deployed business systems - is as much as it is science. Poorly implemented, governance frameworks would serve only to hamper agility and discourage innovation. However, without a sufficient governance framework, software delivery couldn't possibly satisfy the rigors demanded by factors such as geographically distributed teams, regulatory compliance, and inter-organizational services dependenies. Rational solutions balance these concerns, providing a right-sized governance platform for every kind of development approach - from home grown to off-the-shelf customization, real-time and embedded to distributed application.

Rational solutions help organizations achieve the necessary levels of accountability and control throught the classic tenets of good governance:

• Establishing chains of responsibility, authority and communication to empower people
• Establishing measurement, policy and control mechanisms to enable people to carry out their roles and responsibilities.

IBM Rational refers to this governance of software and systems developmet as Business Driven Development (BDD), and has applied twenty years of software development experience to making BDD a reality for its customers. Adoption of the Rational solution helps companies to better

• Manage Value - align business priorities and software investment to yield the best business results.
• Develop Flexibly - enable greater development innovation through flexible sourcing and development productivity tools.
• Control risk and change - evaluate risks and manage risk varianc using development analytics tied to business goals and priorities

Through both the IBM Rational Software Development Platform and a wide range of customizable implementation services, Rational can help the CIO serve both the boardroom and the IT department, enforcing decision rights and delivering the control points and keeping used to measure success and establish accountability. The result is transparency across the software delivery lifecycle and proven best pratices to help organizations better use software and systems development as a core business process.

For more information, kindly click on http://www-306.ibm.com/software/rational