tools

My company has been looking at requirements management solutions, which has provided me with the unique opportunity to play the “user” role for a change, and to do a little research into the attributes that make requirements management successful. Anyway, what I’d like to do with this post is to share a few items I’ve found on the Web as well as some of my own thoughts on what might be of use to others who might be looking for a requirements management solution.

  • (Older, but still available and potentially useful) INCOSE Requirements Management Tools Survey – This survey, provided in table form, compares over 40 different requirements management systems based on how well they conform to over 75 common requirements. Information ranges from as early as 2004 to the summer of 2008, so you’ll have to bear in mind that some of the information may not be the latest and greatest. The INCOSE survey at least gives you a start and can save you quite a bit of preliminary information gathering work regarding the various tools available in the market, and some initial requirements. If you’re interested, here is a text version of the survey requirements.
  • Seilevel’s Requirements Management Tool Selection – I’ve always enjoyed the Seilevel blog and message board as a resource for business analysis insight. In post linked above, Joy shares Seilevel’s process in selecting a requirements management tool to recommend to their clients. She also provides a useful comparison between three “heavy hitters” in the requirements management space – Telelogic (now IBM) Doors, Rational Requisite Pro, and Borland Caliber Analyst. I won’t steal their thunder and share their final recommendation here, but advise you to go have a read.
  • Ralph Young has an interesting document on his site that outlines his process and requirements for selecting a requirements management tool. His document compares a few of the leading tools, but the document is from 2002, so it is more useful as a template to use to pattern a selection process than as a resource to decide between the listed products.
  • In a separate post from the one mentioned above, Seilevel also shares their requirements for deciding on a 3rd party solution provider and describes how this process is different from the requirements process for home-grown software. My company has been following a very similar process in choosing our management tool.

I will probably have more to share as we continue our selection process, but hopefully these will make a good start. If you know of any additional, useful resources for evaluating requirements management tools, I’ll be grateful if you’d share them in the comments below.