How can I generate the equivalent of a VIN number to assign story names with?

[Anya Getman]

Assume you are ECHD, Inc, and you have a flying electro-chemical-hydraulic drone that charges and fixes buildings and moving objects.  It is a complete system that has subassemblies headed up by their own design and testing groups with controllers that talk to a master controller.  Each of these subassemblies have a myriad of components with several alternate suppliers.  Let's focus on screws.  Cyberdyne #2 intelligent self tapping screws can be used in multiple subassemblies for the drone.  Backup supplier is Acme #2 intelligent screws, but their screws are not self-tapping.  These are the only two suppliers on the planet.  When a tsunami wipes out Cyberdyne, we're stuck with Acme, and this drives a requirements change everywhere, with some subsystems requiring a different hole type to accommodate Acme.  It is a full time job for someone to nag users all around ECHD to manually add #screws to every single story that tracks requirements document changes (oh yeah, and you also have DOORS, but only one way automation of data from one to the other, due to security issues).  Instead, what you really need is a way to name stories with a VIN # that automatically assigns a name to a story that identifies, with one letter each, the various levels of complexity:

1. Drone A Rev 2

2. Electrical F Rev 3

3. Leg motor B Rev 1

4. Leg motor mount H Rev 3

5. [level left blank]

6. Intelligent Screw R Rev 4  

and in parallel you'll have 

1. Drone A Rev 2

2. Hydraulic S Rev 1

3. Leg motor B Rev 1

4. Leg motor hydraulic extender Q Rev 1

5. Leg motor hydraulic extender mount E Rev 1

6. Intelligent Screw R Rev 4  

and in parallel you'll have 

1. Drone A Rev 2

2. Hydraulic S Rev 1

3. Gripper D Rev 43

4. Gripper hydraulic extender W Rev 1

5. Gripper hydraulic extender mount X Rev 2

6. Intelligent Screw R Rev 4  

I need to find and update all Intelligent Screw R Rev 4 everywhere without having to manually nag dozens of people.  I need an automated way to find and assign, and later select and change requirements.

These in turn link to a Github with controls code that might be affected.  If the screws no longer self tap, we might need to deactivate a validation check that the Acme screws self tapped, and add code to blink a light for a human to tap.  Online prognostics *might* also not be able to tell the Acme screws to self tighten as they loosen over time.  The code also still needs to work if we ever go back to Cyberdyne. 

Can I create a structure to always find these screws, so that every change regarding screws is easily found, even if someone forgot to add #screws at a critical software change 3 years ago, that very story which will tell me if I can still auto-tighten?

Can we mirror a DOORS requirements tree structure in JIRA somehow, intelligently, in a configuration management way, like I show above?  I might be asking too much to have a 1 to 1 mapping between DOORS requirements and Jira stories about those requirements, but that's a step in the right direction, and the pipe dream of a configuration mapping comes next?

[David Bakkers]

That's a really great Computer Studies assignment your uni lecturer / current employer has assigned for you to do research on.

You're got a huge task ahead of yourself, working it all out for yourself and then turning it all into a workable curriculum document for the students / proposal document for your employer.

Have fun!