Requirements writing and tracing using Greenhopper/JIRA/Confluence

Andrew Karandjeff October 4, 2012

We are currently evolving our requirements gathering process and are looking for some suggestions of best practices using JIRA, Greenhopper and Confluence.

We've been writing our requirements in Word, then setting up task boards in Greenhopper by creating Features for the major sections out of our System Requirements Docs, and then sub-features for the individual requirement components. It's somewhat limiting to be stuck at one level of hierarchy as we could have multiple sections and sub-sections for a particular requirement set.

The benefit of doing things in Word is we can move things around, tinker with the numbering, create various levels of sections and subsections, etc. While we're developing the requirements, things can be very fluid and there's a lot of moving around, going back and plugging in missing requirements, etc. etc. Another benefit of Word is having a discreet document that can be reviewed and approved.

We have Confluence, JIRA and Greenhopper. I'd really like to move the requirements writing process into one of these tools and save the hours of plugging and chugging from Word into JIRA, but I'm concerned about a lack of flexibility in requirements numbering, being able to order and reorder requirements, interject new requirements, and so on. Also, being able to produce an artifact for review and approval is important as well. I know there are many traceability tools out there, too. We are starting to do BR to SR traceability and also plan on having SR to Test Case traceability as well.

If anyone has suggestions on how to approach this, it's be greatly appreciated.

3 answers

1 accepted

0 votes
Answer accepted
Andrew Karandjeff October 14, 2012

I'll look into DocMiner. While that's part of the reason for wanting to move to JIRA, the other is to possibly better leverage the tools we have as we attempt to migrate to a more agile oriented development process. Thanks for the information and I'll see if this helps us along the way.

0 votes
LUC FILION August 6, 2014

Hello Andrew,

You may want to take a look at the Advanced JIRA Issue Insert Macro (AJIIM) for Confluence, which offers to create richer requirement specifications in Confluence by allowing to display for instance requirement-to-test traceability. You may find it here: http://bit.ly/1kwt9uJ.

Regards,

Luc

0 votes
Kinto Soft
Rising Star
Rising Star
Rising Stars are recognized for providing high-quality answers to other users. Rising Stars receive a certificate of achievement and are on the path to becoming Community Leaders.
October 7, 2012

Hi Andrew,

Do you want

I'd really like to move the requirements writing process into one of these tools

only because

and save the hours of plugging and chugging from Word into JIRA.

?

You can still use MS Word to write your requirements and resolve the annoying integration with JIRA by using the DocMiner add-on.

DocMiner could help you in the following ways:

1. Capture your requirements (JIRA issues) directly from MS Word documents and keep the traceability between issues and documents. (VIDEO)

2. See the impact of requirements on test cases (JIRA issues) and many other levels in a nice hierarchical structure built at real time. (VIDEO)

3. Deal with many requirement docs versions: it allows you to compare MS Word documents and see how changes impact on JIRA. (VIDEO)

All the above mainly achieved in a automatic way with few clicks, fully integrated with the JIRA web UI and also in the go (Android & iOS).

Regards,

Pablo

(The Add-on author)

Suggest an answer

Log in or Sign up to answer