Posts Tagged 'Requirements Management'

Unveiling the Impact Part I: Project Level Requirements Analysis Process

June 11, 2024

In our previous article, we examined how deficiencies in requirements management have historically contributed to significant project failures, underscoring the necessity of robust requirement validation processes. In part 3 of an ongoing series with our partner Orca Intelligence, discover the importance of conducting impact analysis in the requirements analysis process and how it can lead to successful project outcomes.

Enhancing Agile Scrum Through Effective Requirements Management and Prioritization

January 10, 2024

In the dynamic world of Agile Scrum framework, the essence of project success lies in the meticulous management of requirements and prioritization of tasks. This article, written by Melissa Daley, CEO and Founder of Orca Intelligence, synthesizes key insights from two critical aspects of Agile project management: Requirements Management and Prioritization in the Agile Scrum Process.

Spotlight on Spira 7.5 - Multiple Requirement Approvers

February 27, 2023

We are excited about the upcoming release of Spira v7.5!

The new version includes, amongst many other features, a brand new SpiraApp called Requirement Multiple Approvals. This new plugin for SpiraTeam and SpiraPlan (not SpiraTest, sorry) will allow you to conduct multiple parallel approvals of a requirement in the system. This much-awaiting feature has been asked for by many of our life sciences customers who need to be able to conduct parallel approvals of requirements.

Spotlight on Spira 7.5 - Customizable Requirement Statuses on Boards

February 21, 2023

We are excited to announce that, following on from the redesign of the main planning board in Spira, we have listened to your feedback around requirements' status. In our new version 7.5 release of Spira coming out shortly, we have changed how the requirements statuses work to give you greater flexibility and control on whether a status appears in the board, and crucially, the order they are displayed in.

Webinar Recap: The Automation of Requirements

March 30, 2022

On March 29th, Inflectra and partner Orca Intelligence hosted a webinar focused on The Automation of Requirements: Save Time Planning, Creating, and Managing Requirements with Swiftly and SpiraTeam. In this webinar, we covered:

• Solicitation Response

  • Work in SpiraTeam to build out a scope for solicitation and generate an estimate in Swiftly

• Agile Project Planning 

  • Plan in detail with SpiraTeam and automatically generate details with Swiftly 

• Agile Delivery Lifecycle Management 

  • Generate detailed user stories with Swiftly and SpiraTeam

  • Manage user stories through SpiraTeam.

If you missed the webinar, we have a full recap below.

Best Practices for Handling Acceptance Criteria

January 10, 2022

We had a customer ask us what was the recommended way to manage the Acceptance Criteria of requirements in a project. There are actually several different ways you can handle acceptance criteria depending on your exact process (and preference):

1. You can simply add a custom Rich Text Description textbox to the Requirement artifact. That will appear underneath the main description.
2. You can use a requirement of type Acceptance criteria and make it a 'Has Steps' type so that you could enter the acceptance checklist as steps.
3. You create a .Feature file in the documents section and link to the requirement. That way you get the automated Gherkin syntax highlighting.
4. You can use a test case of type Acceptance Criteria and use the test steps.

We discuss each of these options below:

Use Case Mapping with SpiraTeam and SpiraPlan

July 15, 2021

A customer recently posed this question to us:

We are gathering requirements following a standard template for use cases. In that template we record main scenario and alternative flows like shown on the example below. What is the best way to map primary and alternate use case process flows to requirements inside Spira?

This is a relatively common question, so in this blog we outline some ways you can manage and map use cases inside Spira....

Webinar Recap: Spira v6.9 - OData, Baselining and Requirements Management

May 13, 2021

On May 12th, Inflectra hosted a webinar on Spira version 6.9 in which we covered the new and enhanced functionality, including:

• Enhanced Requirements Management Document Views

• New Odata functionality for SpiraPlan

• 99 Custom Properties

• Baselining enhancements for SpiraTeam and SpiraPlan. 

If you missed the webinar, we have a full for your cap below 👇

Spotlight on Spira 6.9 - Requirements Management Document View

April 15, 2021

It is widely agreed in the software industry that one of the keys to delivering high-quality products is to get the requirements "right." However, there is far less consensus on what "right" actually means and even less consensus on the best way to get there. So having powerful requirements management and requirements traceability is vitally important to the software development and testing process. In our latest version of SpiraTeam and SpiraPlan, we have improved the new requirements document view to make it more useful for business analysts (BAs) and other team members.

Spotlight on Spira 6.8 - Enhanced BDD and Gherkin Support

February 24, 2021

We are excited about the next release of Spira 6.8, due to be released in March. As we described in a recent blog post, this new version includes major enhancements to the documents management module to allow users the create and edit inline content directly in Spira. However this new feature also makes it amazing easy to write BDD style requirements and test cases in Spira using Gherkin syntax with automatic syntax highlighting. Intrigued, well read on...

Spotlight on Spira 6.6 - Project Baselining Enhancements

August 7, 2020

One of the focus areas in the new release v6.6 of SpiraTeam and SpiraPlan is completing the initial support for baselining. This is an exciting new piece of functionality that makes SpiraTeam and SpiraPlan especially well suited for managing requirements, test cases and artifacts on more complex systems and engineering projects.

Spotlight on Spira 6.5.2 - Requirements and Test Case Baselining

July 6, 2020

One of the focus areas in the upcoming release v6.5.2 of SpiraTeam and SpiraPlan is support for baselining. This is an exciting new piece of functionality that will make SpiraTeam and SpiraPlan especially well suited for managing requirements, test cases and artifacts on more complex systems and engineering projects.

Blog: What’s the Problem with User Stories?

June 3, 2020

We are happy to share a blog post by Inflectra’s Director of Technology -  Adam Sandman called What’s the Problem with User Stories? published on TechWell Insights website. The blog explores key challenges associated with relying solely on user stories for requirements’ definition.

Blog: How To Write Good User Stories

December 19, 2019

In the following blog post, Sriram Rajagopalan - Inflectra's Enterprise Agile Champion explores how-to's of writing good user stories and gives practical recommendations on how to achieve just that. This blog complements Inflectra's December 17th webinar on the same topic, with the webinar recording available inside.

Product Development Tools - The Top 10 Features

December 12, 2019

SpiraPlan is an easy to use, complete solution for managing your product development lifecycle. In this article we discuss the top 10 features you should look for in a product development tool, and why you should choose SpiraPlan over other tools on the market that offer features for product development.

Spotlight on SpiraTeam 6.2 - New Requirements Management Views

August 8, 2019

As we get ready for the release of SpiraTest, SpiraTeam, and SpiraPlan 6.2 later this month, we'd like too introduce some of the new functionality that will be available in this release. In the first installment of this series, we're excited to announce the new requirements management views that have been added to SpiraTeam and SpiraPlan 6.2. They are designed to better serve the needs of the Business Analyst community who often need different views of requirements than the project teams and project managers.

Blog: Five Essentials To Requirements Management

February 28, 2019

The blog is produced in conjunction with Journey Into Agile With Inflectra - A Free Webinar Course.

The corporate business practices have evolved significantly. The products we develop are getting more complex and sophisticated. No longer are the software always having a graphical user interface for users, as wearable technologies and surgical implants transmitting updates to a mobile app are becoming commonplace. These emerging products, applications, and services will require identifying, gathering, and grooming requirements critical aspects of project management and product development.

Webinar Recap: Five Essentials to Managing Your Requirements with SpiraTeam®

February 28, 2019

On February 21, 2019, Inflectra and #SriramRajagopalan hosted a webinar on Five Essentials to Managing Your Requirements with SpiraTeam®. This is the 3rd webinar in the certificate series called: Journey Into Agile With Inflectra - A Free Webinar Course.

If you missed the webinar, please enjoy the recap in this blog.

Journey Into Agile With Inflectra - A Free Webinar Course

January 2, 2019

Inflectra and  #sriramrajagopalan are teaming up to bring you a free five-part online training course on agile project lifecycle management called: Journey Into Agile With Inflectra.

Preventing Scope Creep, Grope and Leap from Killing Your Projects!

December 11, 2018

One of the major reasons that software projects are cancelled, fail to deliver the expected value or experience massive cost / budget overruns is due to a failure to grasp the risk and issues associated with managing the scope. This article describes the three most common types of scope management failure with suggestions of how to avoid such a fate.

Bulk Import of Requirements Test Step Traceability for Mission Systems

October 18, 2018

One of the unique needs when designing and developing mission systems for the defense industry, is the fact that you need to be able to trace system requirements to individual test steps in a test case. Based on this advice we received from industry subject matter experts, we added support in SpiraTeam v5 for this feature. However one limitation was that the data migration tools we have for loading data from Excel into SpiraTeam don't let you add requirement - test step links in bulk... until today.

Are You Testing in the Right Direction?

October 29, 2015

20 Tips for Effective Requirements Elicitation

July 3, 2015

Requirements Elicitation is the act of teasing the true needs from users and other stakeholders, including most departments in the development organization such as sales and training. Elicitation is not simply gathering: gathering is a passive action, whereas elicitation is proactive. This article provides some tips on how to best elicit them. Read More

Can Use Cases Replace User Stories?

May 20, 2015

User Stories are often characterized by relatively short, uncomplicated and informal descriptions, whereas Use Cases are often longer, more formally structured descriptions of not only the user need but also other details. Can Use Cases strike a balance between the need for agility and the need for more information, and if so, how?

Beyond the Document Paradigm – part 3

May 13, 2015

In this conclusion we shall see that migration to a test management or requirements management tool can be easier than it might seem initially. Read More

Beyond the Document Paradigm – part 2

May 7, 2015

When making the transition from document-oriented information storage to record-oriented information management tools, there are a number of problems which can make the process difficult, or even unsuccessful. This second part of our series explains how such pitfalls can occur. Read More

Beyond the Document Paradigm – Part 1

May 5, 2015

Have you ever tried to write a letter in a spreadsheet? Ridiculous idea, right? Or perhaps you’ve tried to do the opposite and store discrete, record-oriented information in a word processor? It can be done using tables, but it’s easier with a spreadsheet. Read More

Agile Myths - Part 3

September 9, 2014

In this item we continue our examination of various Agile methodology ideas and ask whether they are valid or whether they are in fact, industry myths. Read More

Tips for Effective Requirements Management

September 4, 2014

It is a month till release, and the CEO comes out of the office and says we need a new feature for the release. A week later he modifies the new feature. The developer works hard to please him and delivers, but he doesn't like it. The requirement changes again and now we are a few days from release. how are we going to debug, test, and verify for release if things keep changing? Read More

Agile Myths - Part 2

September 2, 2014

In this item we continue our examination of various Agile methodology ideas and ask whether they are valid or whether they are in fact, industry myths. Read More

Agile Myths - Part 1

August 19, 2014

The enthusiasm these days for Agile development is rightly deserved, but with so much being written and said about Agile development, there should be room for healthy debate. While Agile development has proven to be a huge step forward and the right approach for many projects, it is important to continue to ask questions in order that we don’t start to endorse the bad along with the good. We don’t want to throw the baby out with the bathwater, but we can’t keep the bathwater just to avoid the risk of doing so. An occasional examination of principles being promoted and used within the industry helps to maintain Agile methods as the best alternative to traditional development practices for many projects.

In this series of blog postings we shall discuss some of the characteristics of various Agile methodologies and ask whether the ideas are valid or whether they are in fact, industry myths.

Requirements Sign-Off

August 12, 2014

SpiraTeam v4.1 introduced a new feature allowing you to create requirement workflows. This feature allows you to create a workflow that models your signoff process. The question that begs is - what should my requirements signoff process look like...

The Defect-Requirements-Test Triangle

July 15, 2014

It is quite a popular notion that there should be formally recorded associations or links between defects and software code configuration items. This can explain why a piece of code has later been modified and also helps individuals find their way back to the ‘fix’ should the defect be found to still exist upon re-testing. But there are other ways to achieve this and so the question is: can the relationship between the defect and the code really be the most important one? Read More

How to Choose a Test Management Tool

June 4, 2014

While it might seem that the most important consideration when choosing a test management software tool is the set of basic tool features supporting the test process itself, you should not neglect a wide range of other questions that could make or break your test management tool choice. This whitepaper identifies the key attributes you should look for in a test management solution. Read More

The Software Chicken and the Egg

April 16, 2014

For a considerable period of time, we did well organized testing, but not against requirements that were formally defined.
Why was it deemed necessary to automate the test management process before there were any decent tools for recording exactly what we were testing for? Read More

Beware the Over-Engineered Software Product

April 8, 2014

When evaluating software features to either build or buy there is a tendency to want to have every possible feature even if it will be rarely (or event never used) on the off-chance that it could be useful. This post describes some of the pitfalls with this approach. Read More

Documenting Requirements in Agile Projects

April 1, 2014

(aka The Changing Role of the Modern Father)

One of the difficulties of moving from waterfall to an Agile development process is the breaking down of silos of responsibility, including that of the product owner. No longer the deliverer of the requirements 'master-specification', the product owner now participates throughout the entire process, sharing the requirements management task and taking on new, varied and, sometimes unexpected, responsibilities.

Principles of Requirements Engineering (or Requirements 101)

March 11, 2014

Requirements Engineering (RE) is often trivialized as an activity performed by well meaning analysts before they start doing the real work of specifying a product. This whitepaper introduces the critical processes and procedures used when executing effective Requirements Engineering as part of an overall successful project. Read More

10 Questions You Should Ask When Choosing a Tool for Requirements Management

February 24, 2014

If you are looking for a requirements management tool, you probably don't need to be told how important requirements management is. There are a number of standard questions to be asked when selecting any software product for your organization. Read More

Losing Data Wasn't One of the Requirements....? Oops!

February 11, 2014

Library users who spent many hours, perhaps over many years, saving their favorite titles for future reading enjoyment, suddenly found that after the upgrade of the Washington, DC library catalog system, all their favorites were gone. Vanished. Not a trace!