Services: Tooling

Support

Tooling Selection

Stop working with inadequate Requirements Engineering tools. Choose a solution that works for you and your organisation. Which tool fits your organisation, your products and your processes? As an independent party, Saforama can guide you in your quest for the appropriate tool.

Configuration

Having the right tools, does not immediately mean getting the most value out of them. Off-the-shelf tools are usually generic, with functionality and configuration to accommodate a wide range of customers. You will need to forge the tools to fit to your organisation and processes. Of course you need to know what can be configured and how this is best done. Again, Saforama can help with this.

Customisation

Sometimes the application does not have functionality you need out of the box. Prehaps another another application can be setup in parallel to provide that functionality (with all the subsequent data exchange problems) or you may have to submit to doing tedious manual work that is prone to errors. Many Requirements Management application do provide opportunities to add extra behaviour to the application, through extensions or add-ins. This can be achieved using generic scripting languages, such as Python or Javascript, or with application specific laguages, such as DXL for IBM Rational DOORS, or ASE for Cognition Cockpit.

Saforama can help you with such customisations. Some examples of some realised projects:

  • Making reuse of requirements and design possible in an application that does not support this (sufficiently) by default.
  • Interfacing IBM Rational DOORS with Atlassian JIRA; linking requirements in DOORS to issues in JIRA
  • Traceability management (backup and restore of requirements links)
  • Traceability reporting in an graphical manner to provide an uncluttered overview

Custom solutions

Not all Requirements Management application offer the same level of customization. Luckily, we can often find a workable solution.

Some examples of some realised customizations:

  • Dynamic dashboards on an internal website with requirements status overviews and testing progress
  • Automatically (nightly) generating a large set of documents using the Rational Publishing Engine
  • Highly configurable data backup and restore solutions where the application did not fully support this itself

Many organisations are still wrestling with inadequate tooling for the work that needs to be done. Requirements Engineering is one of those areas where this occurs. Sometimes the tooling is too heavy or complex for what the team is trying to accomplish, but more often, the tools are too light, not up to the needs of the processes applied. Office applications, such as Microsoft Word or Excel are rarely the best option.

Expertise

Saforama has experience with numerous applications for managing requirements, such as:

  • Siemens Polarion
  • TopTeam Requirements
  • Jama Connect
  • IBM Rational DOORS and DOORS NG (including IBM Rational Publishing Engine)
  • Cognition Cockpit
  • HP ALM / Quality Center

Coaching

If your tooling is set up, configured, extended if necessary, and working appropriately, your teams will need to work with it. They need to know what they can expect from the tool and what is (for the moment) beyond reach. How is it used? How does it fit in the process? Through training or coaching, Saforama can help you get the engine running smoothly.