Multilevel Requirements Management and Traceablilty

Question

Does JIRA support multilevel rqmts management? Looking for a way to manage over 5000 rqmts across 14 different classes/types/"projects", up to 5 levels deep.  I must be able to show traceability from the top level to the lowest level.  For example:

Source --> Non-Functional --> Functional --> Subsystem --> Use Case

All are many to many.  Need to provide various types of traceability matrices.  For example:

Functional rqmts trace to 10 different classes/types/"projects".  I need a report that shows all of these relationships in one report.

Other times, I need to select a single rqmt (at any level) and show all traces, both up and down, for that single rqmt.

The Functional rqmts trace to 8 different classes/types/"projects".  (All are "subsystem" level.)

NOTE:  NOT interested in tracing test cases, at this time.

Judy Haile · Answer

We are currently using Dimensions RM.  It is extremely flexible and clearly shows traceability from any level.  For various reasons, management has directed a search for possible alternatives.

We do not generate any sort of documentation; not necessary for what we do.  All we need is to maintain (add, modify, delete) rqmts by placing them in appropriate classes and generate trace reports that show how they relate to each other.  In most cases, traces are many to many (this does not seem to be a capability w/in JIRA).

Linking to tests would be a side benefit but is not the primary need.

In our case, most rqmts are NOT temporary.  This is not the normal case of "create rqmts for a specific product, create the product, test, sign off on the rqmts."  Most of our rqmts are reused over and over.  Hard to describe, but we only rarely actually "close" a rqmt.  I don't think Confluence would support what we do.

I'll take a look at the marketplace and see if there's anything that might meet our needs.

Thank you.

Adrien Ragot _Requirement Yogi_ · Answer

Hi Judy,

If you have 5000 requirements, how did you store them, up until now?

Jira doesn't have a traceability matrix, it's only provided by plugins, and each plugin has a different solution. Here is a link to search for plugins providing an RTM: https://marketplace.atlassian.com/search?query=rtm

Here are criteria that can help you choose:

* If you have a strict structure that allowed you to create one Jira issue for each requirement, then you could have 1 issue type per traceability level. However, you will most certainly have difficulty expressing yourself within the small text field of Jira issues.
* Don't forget the follow-up questions: After writing requirements as Jira issues, most customers also ask to generate a global PDF export, grouped by chapter, use-case, with a title and introduction for each chapter. It's good to hunt for the right PDF tool right now, because your stakeholders most certainly will request this form.
* The second question after writing thousands of requirements is how it integrates with a testing tool such as Xray.
* If you've already written your requirements as documents, then you should take the (excellent) route of managing requirements in Confluence documents. With Requirement Yogi (disclaimer: It's our app, we are the authors), you can annotate Confluence pages with requirement keys, build your structure / your traceability matrix in Confluence, and the only create the development tickets in Jira, linked to requirements. Jira issues are temporary, specs in Confluence are here to stay.
* There are many apps to manage requirements on the Atlassian Marketplace, each with their approach, and generally, the difference is how they integrate with testing tools such as Xray. However, most of them manage requirements in Jira: https://marketplace.atlassian.com/search?query=requirement

Best regards,

Adrien Ragot

Heryclles Henrique do Nascimento · Answer

maybe this plugin can help: Multi Level & Tree Field | Atlassian Marketplace