{"id":59815,"date":"2022-01-14T03:00:21","date_gmt":"2022-01-14T11:00:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.jamasoftware.com\/?p=59815"},"modified":"2023-01-12T16:47:44","modified_gmt":"2023-01-13T00:47:44","slug":"how-to-overcome-organizational-barriers-to-live-requirements-traceability","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.jamasoftware.com\/blog\/how-to-overcome-organizational-barriers-to-live-requirements-traceability\/","title":{"rendered":"How to Overcome Organizational Barriers to Live Requirements Traceability"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Live Requirements Traceability<\/h2>\n

Achieving Live Traceability\u2122<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>of product requirements,\u00a0as\u00a0necessitated by\u00a0industry standards,\u00a0across siloed engineering teams and tools,\u00a0is\u00a0the #1\u00a0unsolved problem for most\u00a0product development organizations.\u00a0One of the main barriers is that\u00a0each engineering discipline\u00a0(systems, software, hardware, electrical, risk, verification and validation) has optimized its own process and tools.\u00a0When looking\u00a0at the end-to-end product development process\u00a0siloed teams, tools,\u00a0and data\u00a0make\u00a0it very challenging to trace development activity from\u00a0initial requirement definition through development and testing.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

As a result,\u00a0requirements traceability becomes a time-consuming, error-prone,\u00a0frustrating, and\u00a0manual, after-the-fact process.\u00a0The inability for the product development organization to\u00a0continually trace ongoing development efforts and changes back to user and system requirements results in\u00a0missed requirements, defects, rework, delays, audit letters,\u00a0and cost overruns.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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RECOMMENDED READING:<\/strong> Requirements Traceability: How to Go Live<\/a><\/span><\/span><\/h4>\n
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No common platform exists<\/span><\/b>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The typical approach to solve this generic process problem with software is to force every user onto a single platform and follow one common process. This works for standard business processes in HR, Sales, and Finance, but engineering disciplines across systems, software, hardware, electrical, risk, test, verification, and validation each follow different methodologies and use multiple tools including spreadsheets, desktop, and homegrown applications. Each engineering discipline has optimized their own development environment and strongly resist any attempts to change. Engineering leadership defers to each engineering discipline to define how to best do their work and is loath to dictate processes and tools that will negatively impact the performance and morale of each engineering team.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

In addition to the organizational barriers to standardization, no single platform is even close to currently existing which replaces these dozens of tools. A single platform would need to cover all of the following software categories AND address all functionality in spreadsheets (Excel), scripts, desktop, and homegrown tools: Requirements Management, CAD, MBSE, DFMEA\/FMEA, software task management, software code management, automated software testing, hardware bench test tools, ALM, PLM, and more. Current efforts by legacy vendors to create a common SaaS platform to span all these software categories and reach parity with best-of-breed tools is moving very slowly.\u00a0 <\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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RECOMMENDED READING:<\/strong> Benefits of End-to-End Traceability<\/a><\/span><\/span><\/h4>\n
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How to achieve Live Traceability\u2122 without forcing change on engineering teams<\/span><\/b>\u00a0<\/span><\/h3>\n

So how does an organization achieve Live Traceability across a best-of-breed tool environment supporting disparate methodologies, terminologies, fields, and statuses? The answer is a 3-step approach:<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Step One\u00a0| Live Traceability Model<\/span><\/b>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Define a Live Traceability model across the end-to-end product development process with relationship rules for the traceable data elements across best-of-breed tools. An automotive functional safety example is shown below. Here you can see the operational instantiation of functional safety standards requirements in a relationship model within Jama Connect\u00ae. All necessary traceable information is included with continuous syncs to best-of-breed tools within engineering teams to deliver Live Traceability.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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Step Two\u00a0|\u00a0Adaptive\u00a0Data\u00a0Field\u00a0Mapping<\/span><\/b>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

To achieve Live Traceability, integrations with best-of-breed tools (such as those shown in the example) are required. The typical integration approach standardizes field names and statuses to ensure consistency across the connected tool, but this does not achieve the dual objective of Live Traceability with no changes required in how each engineering team works. Alternately, the proven approach is to apply adaptive data field mapping to ensure no change to engineering teams\u2019 fields and statuses which simultaneously ensures a consistent, process wide, Live Traceability model. This is achieved through robust mapping and normalization logic functionality to easily address the various approaches taken by each engineering team.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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RECOMMENDED READING:<\/strong> Requirements Management Guide: Requirements Traceability<\/a><\/span><\/span><\/h4>\n
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Step Three |\u00a0Management by Exception<\/span><\/b>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Once Live Traceability is achieved, engineering organizations can \u2014 for the first time \u2014 manage the end-to-end product development process in real time, identify exceptions to the process early, and take action to significantly reduce defects, rework, delays, and cost overruns. <\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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LEARN MORE<\/h4>\n
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