Knowing the right Requirements Management tools to use is a difficult task. How do you select the right one? This article will walk you through some of the key criteria to consider when selecting requirements management software.
How to Choose a Requirements Management Tool
There are a lot of options out there when it comes to requirements management software. So, how do you choose the right one for your needs? Here are some must-have criteria to keep in mind:
Ease of use: The software should be easy to use and intuitive. Otherwise, it will be difficult to get buy-in from stakeholders.
Flexibility: The software should be flexible enough to accommodate changing requirements. It should also be able to handle different types of requirements, such as functional, non-functional, and technical.
Reporting: The software should have robust reporting capabilities. This way, you can track progress and identify any issues early on.
Integration: The software should integrate with other tools in your toolchain. This way, you can avoid duplication of effort and data.
Cost: The software should be affordable for your organization. There is no point in paying for features that you will never use.
These are just some of the must-have criteria for requirements management software. Make sure to do your research to find the best tool for your needs.
Enterprise Requirement Management Tools
Doc Sheets is an enterprise requirements management software. It has unique capabilities:
Multiple Views
The software provides different views of data for your requirements management and project management. The views include tree view, document view, card view, grid view, and more.
Workflow & Process Flows
The software automatically provides workflow and process flow tools. These tools help your team collaborate on projects.
Automatic Change Management
The built-in tools for baselines, version control, and change notifications in Doc Sheets help you manage your changes automatically.
Automatic Import Tools
The built-in import tools allow you to automatically convert spreadsheets and word documents into Doc Sheets.
Do Sheets is an enterprise software tool that is scalable and provides high performance. Try Doc Sheets for free OR get a demo to see how it helps your organization.
Top 10 Requirement Management Tools Problems
Project failures happen all the time and for many reasons, but issues in requirements management tend to be chief among them.
For example, vaguely defined requirements attract scope creep, late project delivery, bloated budgets, and a final product that falls short on meeting consumer needs and safety thresholds.
The right stack of requirement management tools simplifies requirements management, helping project managers and workers to easily track, measure, evaluate, and communicate to stakeholders.
Conversely, complicated requirement management tools do the opposite –making requirements management harder and may even render a project impossible to deliver.
This post addresses current requirements management tools pitfalls and how to choose the right tools.
Requirements Management Tools Pitfalls
Typically, requirements are presented in more forms than simple lists and include complex structures, references, and dependencies.
The best requirement management tools have to consider these facts to successfully simplify the requirements management process. However, there are tons of requirement management tools with different features.
Some capitalize on features that a particular project doesn’t need or lack a feature that makes a complicated document easier to update. These differences are often what create the pitfalls. Here are the most common:
1. Hard to Learn and Use Tools
The digital landscape gets more complicated each day, causing the user experience (UX) and usability of any digital product to be more important than any other feature.
When vendors promise cutting-edge features but negate the importance of making the tool easy-to-use and easy to learn, the tool either ends up taking up more money and time on training or becomes useless.
2. Tools that Cannot Be Customized
Different teams have different needs –especially when an organization is large, and the teams are spread out in different departments.
If a management requirement tool calls for consulting packages to customize it or makes no room to change how it functions, it becomes too rigid for the complex needs of a requirement management process.
3. Do Not Get Carried Away By Sales Demos
Sometimes, the sales demo and what you get don’t align. In this case, both the vendor and the purchasing company are to blame. Ideally, a team may have vague objectives for the tool or may have their understanding of what’s more important about the features backward.
For instance, getting lost in the aesthetics such as screen measurements and colors without focusing on a tool’s problem-solving abilities sets an organization up for failure.
For the vendor, they may put up an impressive pre-purchase demo, putting less emphasis on what the customer wants, leaving them with a ‘great on paper’ tool but one that just doesn’t work.
4. Suitability
A spreadsheet works just fine for filling out requirements management documents for smaller businesses. But for larger organizations or complex projects, excel spreadsheets, and word documents make the work lengthy and tedious.
More than that, it’s easy to have different versions of the same document when a project is being handled by different teams.
Complex projects require finer details, and unless you can find a tool that gives you granular information and makes the data accessible from a central place, it’s easy to create bits and pieces that contribute to project failure.
5. Missing On-Premise Version
An on-premise software version allows the installation of the software on an organization’s servers and on its IT network. Also, it has a lower total cost of ownership because you only pay once for your licenses. The other notable advantage is giving you complete control over your data, hardware, and platforms.
Beyond a missing on-premise version, a tool that doesn’t allow approval and reviews hampers the requirements management process –sometimes forcing teams to rely on emails to collect approvals.
Instead, a good requirements management tool will not only allow for approvals but enable teams to run analyses of the project’s documentation to create a plausible stack of requirements.
6. Excessively Expensive RM Tools
Many requirements management tools on the market are expensive, which is cost-prohibitive even for many large organizations. This affects many organizations’ ability to collaborate on large projects. These promises may also come with hidden costs that make it hard to maintain the tools.
Complicated requirements management tools also demand training –adding on to the costs through paying for the training and the time spent on the training.
A worthwhile requirements management tool should have advantages that outweigh the cost of lost time and training expenses. This also extends into downtime. Any downtime should be more than made up for through how much work it’s able to get done afterward.
7. Browser Support
Scalability and usability issues plague many browser-based requirements management technologies. For example, rearranging the hierarchy on some browsers can result in a system error, and refreshing a page may result in the loss of work.
In addition to these inconveniences, a tool that only works with some browsers excludes users with other browsers or forces them to adopt a particular browser to accommodate it.
8. Tools that Offer a Good Start but Prove Inefficient As the Process Becomes More Detailed
Unfortunately, most readily available tools work well at the beginning, but as the project expands, they cannot deliver on important aspects and introduce these hitches:
- It becomes difficult to manage structured data in a standardized format.
- It’s impossible to establish relationships and dependencies between requirements data
- It’s hard to trace data and processes, creating confusion in the requirements
- Real-time collaboration with stakeholders becomes hard
- Hampered versioning creates clashing or out-of-date requirements
- Change takes too much time, creating a breeding ground for conflict among team members
9. Floating Vs Node-Locked (Fixed) Licenses
Many requirements management tools on the market only come with node-locked licenses, making it tough to manage licenses and work using multiple devices. These issues do not exist with floating licenses.
10. Adapting to your Process
Many requirements management tools dictate a process. A smart requirement management tool adapts to your current process without any customization cost.
What to Look for in a Requirements Management Tool
With many options out there and no expert guide for choosing the right tool, you may end up settling for third-party apps that interfere with collaboration, creating a host of long-term problems for your project.
Here are the right criteria for settling on a requirements management tools for your business:
- Need. Determine what you need most out of the software.
- Compare different tools. A clear definition of your needs will help you compare and contrast different tools and settle on the most efficient.
- Accessibility. Assess the accessibility to ensure stakeholders can track, analyze, and alter the requirements according to to need.
- Compatibility with other tools. With integration barriers slowing down 84% of company planning, you need to ensure that the software integrates with your suite of tools to streamline processes and secure data.
- Ease of use. This is important to ensure the tool enhances productivity instead of dwindling it
In Conclusion
Tools are always created to make work easier. If a tool complicates the job instead, it’s time to replace it with a tool that’s truly built to do the hard work so you can focus on your relevant project activities.
Goda Software is about making lifecycle management easy with a Doc Sheets tool. It’s highly scalable, collaborative, offers traceability, and has an easy-to-use and appealing interface. Stop stalling your projects with poor requirement management tools and use Doc Sheets instead. Learn more.
Requirement Management Tools List
Here is the list of requirements management tools that are available on the market.
1. Agosense.fidelia (1.8.19) by agosense GmbH
Agosense.fidelia is a powerful and easy-to-use test management software. It offers all the features necessary for managing your software testing projects in one place.
2. Aligned Elements (2.5 SP1) by Aligned AG
The Aligned Elements tool helps organizations create a shared understanding of project requirements among all stakeholders. It also provides a traceability framework that links requirements to other project artifacts such as design, test, and code.
3. Quality Center by Micro Focus
ALM / Quality Center (15.0.1) is a web-based application that provides users with quality management tools. The application includes requirements management, test management, and defect tracking capabilities.
4. ALM Octane (15.0.40) by Micro Focus
ALM Octane is a requirements tool that helps dev and ops teams deliver quality applications quickly.
5. CodeBeamer ALM (9.5) by Intland Software GmbH
CodeBeamer ALM is an application lifecycle management (ALM) solution that helps organizations streamline and optimize their software development processes. It includes tools for requirements management, project management, issue tracking, and document management.
6. Cognition Cockpit (9.2) by Cognition Corporation
Cognition Cockpit is a powerful tool that helps users manage and analyze their cognitive data. It provides users with an interface to track their cognitive performance over time and tools to help them identify trends and outliers in their data.
7. Cradle (7.5) by 3SL
Cradle is a requirements management tool that enables users to capture, manage, and track requirements. It also provides traceability between requirements and other project artifacts, such as test cases and defects.
8. Dimensions RM (12.7.1) by Micro Focus
Dimensions RM is a requirements management tool that enables organizations to capture, trace, and manage requirements. It also supports reporting and analysis to help project stakeholders track the progress of their projects.
9. ENOVIA 3DEXPERIENCE (R2020x) by Dassault Systèmes
ENOVIA is a powerful 3DEXPERIENCE platform that enables enterprises to collaboratively design, develop, and manage product data and processes. In addition, it provides users with access to a comprehensive set of tools for managing product lifecycles from inception to retirement.
10. Enterprise Architect (15.1) by Sparx Systems
Enterprise Architect (15.1) is a powerful modeling tool that provides various features for designing, visualizing, and documenting enterprise architectures. It supports multiple notations, including UML, BPMN, and SysML, and can be used to reverse engineer existing systems or to design new ones from scratch.
11. Helix RM (2019.5.0) by Perforce
Helix RM is a robust, full-featured Requirements Management tool that helps organizations improve collaboration and streamline requirements management processes. Helix RM enables users to capture, trace, and manage requirements throughout the software development lifecycle.
12. Innoslate (4.2.1) by SPEC Innovations
Innoslate is a project management software that enables users to manage their projects efficiently. It is a cloud-based software that allows users to access their projects anywhere.
13. Innovator for Business Analysts (14.1)
Innovator for Business Analysts (14.1) is a software application that allows business analysts to work with data more effectively. It provides data exploration, analysis, and visualization tools that help users make better decisions and improve their productivity.
14. in-STEP BLUE (6.5) by microTool GmbH
in-STEP BLUE is a powerful software tool that enables easy and efficient management of complex processes. The software is developed by ProcessWorx and has been designed to meet the specific needs of process-oriented organizations.
15. iRise (11.6) by iRise
iRise is a visual modeling tool that enables businesses to create and iterate on software prototypes without any coding. It’s used by organizations of all sizes in various industries to communicate their ideas and requirements visually before a single line of code is written.
16. Jama Connect (8.47) by Jama Software
Jama Connect is a requirements management application that helps organizations manage their product development processes. It provides users with a central location to store and share project information, track progress, and collaborate with team members.
17. Kovair ALM Studio (9.8) by Kovair Software, Inc.
Kovair ALM Studio is a web-based application lifecycle management (ALM) solution that helps you manage your software development projects from start to finish. It provides you with all the tools you need to plan, track, and collaborate on your projects.
18. Modern Requirements4DevOps (2019 Update 2) by eDev Technologies
Modern Requirements4DevOps is a requirements management tool that helps development teams manage and track requirements throughout the software development process. It provides an integrated platform for managing requirements, tracking progress, and communicating with stakeholders.
19. objectiF RM (6.0) by microTool GmbH
Objectif 6.0 is the newest release of objectiF RM. It includes significant improvements and new features, making it an even more powerful tool for software requirements management. With 6.0, you can now manage your requirements more effectively and efficiently than ever before
20. objectiF RPM (5.2) by microTool GmbH
Objectif RPM (5.2) is a software tool that supports various programming languages and technologies. It supports requirements, test, change, and configuration management.
21. OneDesk Product Management (January 2020) by OneDesk Inc
OneDesk Product Management helps you track your product development process from start to finish to stay organized and on schedule.
22. Polarion Requirements (19.3) by Siemens Industry Software GmbH
Polarion Requirements 19.3 provides end-to-end traceability from initial requirements capture to final product delivery, ensuring all stakeholders have visibility into the project’s progress.
23. PREEvision (9.0.11) by Vektor Informatik GmbH
PREEvision is a software tool for managing the development of safety-critical systems. It enables you to develop your systems in a highly structured and efficient way while keeping track of all the necessary information.
24. Psoda (8.03.1) by Psoda
Psoda provides a centralized repository for all project-related information, enabling easy collaboration and progress tracking. It also offers robust reporting features, giving managers visibility into the health of their projects at any given time.
25. R4J – Requirements Management for JIRA (4.1.5-1-jira8) by ease solutions Pte Ltd
R4J is a requirements management tool for JIRA that helps you capture, manage, and track requirements within your JIRA projects. R4J provides an intuitive interface for managing requirements and monitoring their progress from inception to delivery.
26. Rally Software by Broadcom
Rally Software (Q1 2020) provides software and services to help companies adopt agile practices at scale. Agile constitutes a set of principles for software development that emphasizes the importance of collaboration, customer feedback, and working in short cycles to deliver value quickly.
27. RaQuest (4.4) by SparxSystems Japan Co., Ltd
RaQuest is a requirements management software that enables users to manage their software development process effectively. It provides requirement traceability, change management, and version control features.
28. ReqEdit (2.15) by REQTEAM GmbH
ReqEdit is a tool for editing requirements documents. It is designed to help requirements engineers and analysts to create, edit and manage requirements documents.
29. ReqSuite RM (3.0) by OSSENO Software GmbH
ReqSuite RM (3.0) provides a central repository for requirements, allows for easy traceability between requirements and other project artifacts, and helps ensure that all stakeholders have visibility into the project’s progress.
30. ReQtest by ReQtest AB
ReQtest is a software that helps developers and testers to work together more efficiently to deliver high-quality software. It provides an easy and effective way to manage requirements, track bugs, and collaborate on test cases.
31. RequirementONE by RequirementOne Inc.
RequirementOne provides users with a central repository for storing and managing requirements and tools for collaboration, traceability, and impact analysis. It also helps organizations optimize their requirements processes and improve communication between stakeholders.
32. ReqView (2.8.1) by eccam s.r.o.
ReqView is a requirements management tool that enables efficient requirements gathering, analysis, and reporting. It provides users with an intuitive interface for managing requirements and powerful tools for analyzing and tracking dependencies between requirements.
33. RMsis (2.0.5) by Optimizory Technologies Pvt. Ltd.
RMsis (2.0.5) is a web-based application that offers a hassle-free way to manage your requirements.
34. Specification Wizard by MeetAdd
The Specification Wizard is a tool that allows developers to create specifications for their software projects easily. It is based on the popular Unified Modeling Language (UML), and it provides a graphical user interface (GUI) that makes it easy to create and edit specifications.
35. SpiraTeam (6.3) by Inflectra
SpiraTeam is a software development and project management tool that helps organizations improve efficiency and productivity. It offers a wide range of features and tools that help teams manage their work more effectively, including projects, tasks, issues, and documents.
36. Visure Requirements (5.2) by Visure Solutions, Inc.
Visure Requirements is one the requirements management tools that enables organizations to manage better, trace, and verify their requirements. It provides complete visibility into requirements development and implementation progress and ensures compliance with standards and best practices.
37. Windchill RV&S (12.3.0.0) by PTC
Windchill RV&S is a requirements management tool that enables organizations to manage, view, and trace requirements throughout the product development lifecycle.
38. Yonix by Yonix Ltd.
Yonix is a requirements management software tool used by organizations to track and manage their requirements. It’s a web-based tool that provides a centralized repository for all requirements, allowing users to collaborate on and manage requirements.
What are the Benefits of RM Tools?
- RM tools help organizations to manage their content more effectively and efficiently.
- These tools assist organizations in automating their content processes and workflows, making it easier and faster to get work done.
- RM tools assist organizations in better understanding and controlling their content.
- These requirements management tools help to improve the overall quality of content by providing better management and control over its creation, storage, and distribution.
The post Requirements Management Tools Selection appeared first on Doc Sheets - Project and Requirements Management Software Tools.
