Are you tired of sorting through hundreds or thousands of pages of requirements documents stored in multiple locations? It’s a common problem for developers managing complex projects that we at Requirement Yogi often hear about.
When the majority of your developers are using Jira and Confluence, it’s best to choose a tool that allows you to manage requirements directly where they’re working.
There are several apps available on the Marketplace to meet various business needs. To help you choose, we’ve compiled some of the must-have features for a requirements management app.
To manage the development of multiple, complex projects, there are several features every business using Jira and Confluence should look for.
First of all, you’ll want a tool that allows you to manage requirements in Confluence as well as in Jira. Documenting your requirements in Confluence provides a permanent record and a single source of truth, whereas Jira issues will change and are easy to lose track of. That’s why you should leverage Confluence as your foundation rather than only tracking requirements in Jira. You’ll want to select a tool that can automatically number requirements in Confluence and link them to relevant Jira issues.
Requirements change over time, and you’ll want to track these changes from beginning to end.
To see how requirements have progressed and evolved, a best practice is to set baselines at regular intervals as agreed upon with stakeholders. Many leading requirement management apps allow you to save a snapshot of your requirements as a baseline and make comparisons between baselines along the course of development.
Being able to trace your project from end to end is key, documenting the entire process from call-for-bids to specifications to Jira issues to Git commits to tests. An ideal tool facilitates traceability across Confluence and Jira so you can track the initial specifications laid out in Confluence as well as monitor the related Jira issues.
With customizable traceability, you can build your requirements and test management specifications from different points of view, depending on which information you want to extract.
You’ll want to be able to trace the details of the Jira issues in depth for the development teams, and also display a traceability matrix to show an overview of the status of your project for managers and stakeholders.
Test management plays an essential role in the development process as it is the only way to verify whether your requirements are achievable. Because of this, a requirements management tool should either have a built-in solution or integrate with popular Atlassian test management tools like Xray and Zephyr.
If your team is already accustomed to Xray or Zephyr, a tool that integrates with both may be an ideal solution. Just make sure test results can be clearly shown in the tool’s reporting and traceability features.
Commonly, not all stakeholders work in Jira, so that’s another factor to consider when choosing a tool. Look for a tool that enables you to import and export requirements.
For example, many companies using standalone requirements management software save their documentation in ReqIF format. If you’ve been using external software or are collaborating with partners using this format, the tool you choose should be able to import files of this type into Confluence and Jira.
And for reporting purposes, exporting a traceability report in Excel or PDF format can provide full visibility on progress to business stakeholders outside of Jira.
The most popular tools for managing requirements in Jira and Confluence are similar in terms of defining baselines and versions. All include traceability matrixes and import/export capabilities from ReqIF and to CSV.
Some focus heavily on test management and have that built in as a key component or offer a supplemental app for test management. Requirement Yogi combined with Requirement Yogi for Jira, on the other hand, offers robust integration with Zephyr and Xray, making it ideal for businesses relying on these tools for testing.
Requirement Yogi is based in Confluence, allowing you to generate full requirements documentation there that integrate with Jira issues. This makes it a good option for businesses looking to create lasting requirements documents that are easy to trace and reference.
Mileva Briand
Webmarketing Manager
Requirement Yogi
France
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