Database Plus

Enterprise software development is complex, and managing that complexity is often more challenging than building the product itself. Even small projects can go off the rails if they're not guided by a clear set of requirements. While a requirements document is an admirable first step, such a document is a living list of specifications that morph as the final milestone comes closer into view. In fact, depending on the division of labor and the subject matter experts involved, projects frequently have multiple requirements documents. Each of these analysts may have their own data collection methodology, further complicating the interrelationships of all the "moving parts." Recognizing this expanding complexity, several companies offer requirements management solutions designed to eradicate ambiguity and encourage team synergy, with the ultimate goal of delivering a high-quality product more effectively than ever before.

At the Core
Most requirements management tools are nothing more than a database of system or project attributes such as tasks, feature descriptions and priorities. It's what the tool vendors add to this database that elevates it beyond mere fields and records. Differentiation, then, hinges on how tools present and share this data among stakeholders. Some show graphical representations of dependencies and relationships between requirements, making it easier to identify critical requirements as well as traverse the impacts of changes made to such anchors.

Traceability has also become a major need in requirements management tools, and is no longer just the domain of safety-critical or highly audited industries such as pharmaceuticals or aerospace. Now, with the advent of federal Sarbanes-Oxley legislation, public companies find their fiscal and, indirectly, intellectual transactions under scrutiny. Tools that track history and keep audit digests can provide clear explanations of why a change was made, helping to reduce the glare on CIOs staring into the Sarbanes-Oxley spotlight.

Tailored to a Platform, Tied to an Office Suite
Most products listed in this guide's tool matrix run exclusively on Windows, and many are optimized for a particular development environment. IBM Rational's RequisitePro is optimized for IBM's vision of the Rational Unified Process and integrates with the look and feel of WebSphere and other IBM developerWorks interfaces. Borland's CaliberRM (see Larry O'Brien's review, "Beyond Notecards") couples with Borland's Delphi and JBuilder tools. Compuware's Reconcile integrates nicely with Microsoft's Visual Studio .NET. Regardless of visual style or integration tendencies, nearly every product in the matrix is relatively easy to learn and intuitive to use.

These tools universally share some form of read-only report generation to Microsoft Word, with a growing number of vendors creating such reports from a Web-based application server for more open data display. The read-write aspects of distributed team management are another differentiator, most frequently manifested in the product's cost. The more distributed the tool to various levels of participants and applications, the more expensive the product. Even so, the Microsoft Office suite is still the dominant character-capturing utility for requirements.

Tight integration with Office formats is a feature of most RM tools, whether interacting with tagged elements in a Word document or storing the relative paths to the specific Office files containing related requirements documentation. Some solutions, such as CaliberRM and SpeeDEV, have extended their support for Office applications to two-way synchronization with Microsoft Project. Not only does this approach eliminate redundant data entry, it also improves impact analysis related to the project schedule.

In the case of CaliberRM 2005 release, Borland goes a step further by embedding requirements dependency and general cost analysis views into its product, thus blurring the boundaries among traditional requirements, efforts-based cost estimation and portfolio management. The company's recent announcement of its Software Delivery Platform (SDP) strategy has expanded and unified the integration of requirements from concept to code in real-time (see "Clarifying Ambiguity"). While other vendors, such as IBM Rational, have advertised the concept, implementation costs of such an approach have been difficult to justify, particularly in smaller organizations. Time will tell if an approach such as Borland's is both innovative and cost-effective enough to lift the bar for requirements tools.

Information for All
Distributed team development is becoming the norm. Often, internal and external groups participating in a project's requirements-gathering phase must have the ease of access to the amassed data as if they were physically in the same conference room. Some RM vendors offer Web interfaces to read-only data, while others use dynamic HTML or Java applets. These approaches are especially useful for those analysts not part of the Windows majority.

Cost is another variant in the RM tools spectrum. Some vendors provide flat-out site licenses, others per-seat or concurrent, and still others break apart the client and server components into separate products. Some, like Rally, take the application service provider approach and are trying to become the Salesforce.com of the product development lifecycle world. The ASP model is particularly enticing to those organizations burned by costly licenses, delayed implementations and underutilized investments from past attempts. For example, Rally takes on the burden of maintaining the infrastructure and the scalability to cushion the ebb and flow of users needed to participate in the system as the cycle shifts from requirements to design to implementation. However, the concern of data lockout and the fluid uncertainty of adding subscribers to such a system, as well as the inherent trust of an ASP to house highly confidential development data, may prevent rapid adoption of this alternative.

Evaluation Criteria
The tool matrix reviews three important criteria useful for assessing each solution. The products summarized range in focus from the single user working within a contained project state to expansive enterprise approaches for large staffs of business analysts and developers who must manage deliverables while tracking all the dependent relationships. Price usually dictates the level of complexity a tool can tackle, and this typically corresponds with the complexity of configuring, learning and employing the tool to its advertised level of optimal return on investment. The three criteria identify:

Distinct Features. This represents the standout features either best implemented or exclusively available in the product. At its heart, a requirements management tool is simply a database; the value lies in what the tools vendor has layered on top of it.

Market Buzz is a subjective summary of what the trade press, product customers and our editors have to say about the RM product and the company that supplies it. The better received the product, the more likely a larger customer base will participate in its care and feeding and the ongoing prosperity of its progenitor.

Cost. Software licenses are becoming as complex as the products they cover. The vendors listed have adopted several licensing and cost models that make it more difficult to calculate the total cost of ownership. Named, node-locked or per-seat, concurrent or floating, single and site licenses, and the companies' interpretations of what qualifies as a site complicate side-by-side comparisons of actual dollar amounts. There's also the question of feature distinction among versions, as several vendors provide standard, professional and enterprise editions of their products, further obscuring a direct cost analysis. As such, the dollar amount is intended as a relative indicator of the class level the vendor has targeted.

Mike Riley is a Naperville, Illinois–based advanced computing professional specializing in emerging technologies and new development trends. Contact him at [email protected].