Overall Satisfaction with IBM Engineering Lifecycle Management
In the many consulting jobs that I have been doing, I have occasionally encountered companies with solid and extensive processes (necessary bureaucracy for manufacturers and factories, since they need to manage big production flows). For projects in that environment, we need extensive traceability tools, like IBM Rational DOORS.
- Big panorama view in relation to requirements. You can have all your artifacts in one place with total traceability.
- MS Office templates and IBM Requisite Pro compatibility.
- IBM ways of doing things, like customizing your variables and so on.
- Too complex for projects or businesses that don't really need the detail. It is basically overkill.
- If you are new to IBM Rational tools, it may be a medium learning curve. You'd also need lots of training from your people, since, as usual, this tool shouldn't be managed alone.
- It may seem old fashion compared to JIRA and the current control tools used in IT industry.
- If you can setup DOORS to your project, you will experience lower costs.
- Also, less rework in the project, which means lower times to achieve your milestones.
- Finally, the cost of setting up a related project is considerably lower, and the estimates obtained in the process are much more precise.
Requisite Pro (and Rational Requirements Composer, it's successor) is more simple and focused on requirements. Is like a part of DOORS and can be suitable to smaller projects. IT people on the other hand prefer agile tools like JIRA. Of course if the project is big enough, DOORS is a good option to consider.