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IBM Engineering Lifecycle Management (ELM) pros and cons

Vendor: IBM

3.6 out of 5

20 reviews
77% willing to recommend

Pros & Cons summary

IBM Engineering Lifecycle Management (ELM) offers valuable tools for regulated industries with features like global configuration and effective management capabilities. While Scrum-based planning is efficient, the dashboard's CPU usage reporting is appreciated. However, improvements in work history tracking, intuitive navigation, and reducing click complexity are needed. Better beginner support and enhanced development interconnectivity are also essential to optimize user experience and productivity.

Buyer's Guide

Get pricing advice, tips, use cases and valuable features from real users of this product.

Prominent pros & cons

PROS

IBM Engineering Lifecycle Management (ELM) provides rich planning features with Scrum concepts such as Sprint and Sprint retrospective, which assist in effective framework implementation.

The cataloging feature is valuable for enterprises to clearly define which applications are responsible for specific features.

IBM Rational ALM within ELM excels in providing management and traceability, test management tools, and enabling workflow capabilities for seamless team collaboration.

The integration with Git and reporting features, such as CPU usage on the dashboard, allow for effective resource management and monitoring.

IBM Engineering Lifecycle Management (ELM) supports companies in regulated industries by facilitating documentation that meets audit requirements.

CONS

IBM Engineering Lifecycle Management should improve reporting features with a focus on work history and deeper tracking.

There is insufficient beginner support material like FAQs or simple training resources for IBM Engineering Lifecycle Management.

IBM Engineering Lifecycle Management requires more intuitive features to enhance user experience.

Stability improvements are necessary for IBM Engineering Lifecycle Management.

The interconnectivity between different packages in IBM Engineering Lifecycle Management needs enhancement.

IBM Engineering Lifecycle Management (ELM) Pros review quotes

AH

Abdulrazzaq Huneidi

Applications Developer Specialist at a comms service provider with 1,001-5,000 employees

Jun 12, 2018

The planning feature is rich with Scrum concepts: Sprint, Sprint retrospective, the rules in the Scrum framework.

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LG

Lyubomir Gotsev

Consultant at a computer software company with 1-10 employees

Sep 8, 2019

It is relatively easy to use and user-friendly once the setup is complete.

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MM

Group CEO at Mmusi Group

Sep 10, 2019

The cataloging is a very valuable feature. For a lot of enterprises, they end up not knowing which applications do specific features. The cataloging helps with this. It's not that verbose, but it still gives you allowances to put in more detail.

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IBM Engineering Lifecycle Management (ELM)

Free Report: IBM Engineering Lifecycle Management (ELM) Reviews and More

Learn what your peers think about IBM Engineering Lifecycle Management (ELM). Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: December 2025.

879,711 professionals have used our research since 2012.

TG

Software Product Manager at a computer software company with 11-50 employees

Sep 19, 2019

It helped us contain critical things, like source code and several documents, which is very important to us.

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NK

Quality Assurance at Varroc Lighting System

Oct 1, 2019

At the same time, if you're working from the architect or the designing team you, it's quite easy to manage the resources online.

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reviewer1256694

Technology Architect at a computer software company with 10,001+ employees

Jan 5, 2020

The most valuable feature is the reporting of the CPU usage on the dashboard.

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AH

Abdulrazzaq Huneidi

Applications Developer Specialist at a comms service provider with 1,001-5,000 employees

Aug 13, 2020

You can customize the board according to your needs.

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AS

Srikumar Aravinda Krishnan

Lead Engineer at a transportation company with 5,001-10,000 employees

Jul 31, 2021

The tools for requirement capture we have found very useful.

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Petronela Ghergulov

Engineering Quality Analyst at Visteon Corporation

Sep 28, 2021

It's easy to use.

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reviewer1251984

Tool Manager at a computer software company with 10,001+ employees

Feb 10, 2022

The integration with Git works well.

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IBM Engineering Lifecycle Management (ELM) Cons review quotes

AH

Abdulrazzaq Huneidi

Applications Developer Specialist at a comms service provider with 1,001-5,000 employees

Jun 12, 2018

I would like to see better reporting features. The out-of-box reporting is - I don't want to say limited - but the focus is on the Scrum and Sprint reports. We need more reporting features regarding the history of the work, tracking it more deeply.

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LG

Lyubomir Gotsev

Consultant at a computer software company with 1-10 employees

Sep 8, 2019

There is not enough beginner support material in the form of FAQs or simple training to help you get started.

Read full review

MM

Group CEO at Mmusi Group

Sep 10, 2019

The features should be more intuitive. If I'm looking for something, its location should be easy to locate.

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IBM Engineering Lifecycle Management (ELM)

Free Report: IBM Engineering Lifecycle Management (ELM) Reviews and More

Learn what your peers think about IBM Engineering Lifecycle Management (ELM). Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: December 2025.

879,711 professionals have used our research since 2012.

TG

Software Product Manager at a computer software company with 11-50 employees

Sep 19, 2019

Of course it would be related to customer experience. The solution is not user friendly at all. It needs an expert to use it, although the reporting feature was okay.

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NK

Quality Assurance at Varroc Lighting System

Oct 1, 2019

The directory designer manager is uncivil. The design manager is clearly really unstable.

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reviewer1256694

Technology Architect at a computer software company with 10,001+ employees

Jan 5, 2020

The stability of this solution can be improved.

Read full review

AH

Abdulrazzaq Huneidi

Applications Developer Specialist at a comms service provider with 1,001-5,000 employees

Aug 13, 2020

The reporting functionality needs to be improved.

Read full review

AS

Srikumar Aravinda Krishnan

Lead Engineer at a transportation company with 5,001-10,000 employees

Jul 31, 2021

I think nowadays people are getting into Jira and other tools. What is happening is, this solution is becoming more traditional, whereas Jira and other tools are more attractive for the new users to learn and start using because of the graphical interfaces.

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Petronela Ghergulov

Engineering Quality Analyst at Visteon Corporation

Sep 28, 2021

The stability of IBM Rational ALM could be improved.

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reviewer1251984

Tool Manager at a computer software company with 10,001+ employees

Feb 10, 2022

One of the complaints from users is that they have to click buttons too many times for just a simple task. Changing this would lead to a better user experience.

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Show 10 more reviews (out of 20)

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Popular Comparisons

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Microsoft Azure DevOps vs IBM Engineering Lifecycle Management (ELM)

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