Good cloud-based requirement management and evolution solution, with room to improve processes
Updated April 29, 2021
Good cloud-based requirement management and evolution solution, with room to improve processes
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Overall Satisfaction with Jama Connect
Jama Connect is the source of truth for requirements within the SKA Organisation (SKAO). We have used internally within SKAO to communicate between Engineering, Operations, and Scientists, but also to do requirement reviews with external consortia, to get their input. We are also using it for requirement flow-down and traceability, and using several report tools. With the SKAO being a non-profit organization, the main goal is delivering maximum value for the system being designed and later implemented, and having an agile way of dealing with requirements helps us.
- Having access to requirements from everywhere in the world.
- Requirement reports for document-centric parts of the development.
- Support for online reviews and discussions.
- Cloud-based installations don't have full access to all reporting tools.
- Online reporting templates are not too customizable.
- Glossaries are not first-class citizens in Jama; it should be possible to link to glossary entries directly from requirements, and vice-versa.
- We do not measure the Return of Investment. We have moved past the Critical Design Review and moving into construction.
- We expect to be able to measure ROI in the form of increased contingency in the next phase.
- Engagement with the tool has not been universal; we had many people relying on the exported Word/PDF documents instead of providing feedback on Jama Connect directly or through reviews. Also many people are using Xray to manage testing of requirements in Jama, and need to integrate with it, currently testing a third-party tool for that.
- We have been able to apply for a non-for-profit license for JIRA and Confluence; we don't seem to have such a possibility with Jama.
Easy management of requirements with integration to the Engineering Change Process. We have somewhat been successful in that, by creating reviews on sets of comments, and later importing the feedback into the system, but it is not too clear. Being able to link testing outcomes and testing plans with similar structures in Jama is the next step of the plan.
The internal model for Jama is sound, and traceability and suspect links are some of the best tools that we have. However, interoperability is not the best, and many times the requirements being provided by other parties needed a lot of massaging before being able to be imported in Jama.
I am also familiar with ReqIF Studio, and the NoMagic DataHub for requirement management. Jama requires no installation, and the use of floating licenses is quite useful. As long as your workflow can be kept in Jama, everything works OK. However, interoperability is the weak link, and DOORS has better interoperability. ReqIF Studio's support of the ReqIF standard is another good point, but collaboration requires a merging workflow that is cumbersome.
Using Jama Connect
60 - The main users of Jama Connect are the Systems Engineering, Project Engineering, and Mission Assurance teams. In addition, also the System Scientists, and the domain specialists outside of SKAO also make use of it. The number is a rough estimate… but we have ~60 fixed seats, and around 500 floating seats.
5 - The System Engineering team is the main supporter of Jama Connect for the rest of the organisation.
- Requirements Management
- Compliance to requirements through testing evidence
- Checking progress of system verification
Jama Connect Support
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
Quick Resolution Good followup Knowledgeable team Problems get solved Kept well informed No escalation required Support understands my problem Quick Initial Response | None |
Not Sure
Yes - It was recognised as a bug, and a timeline for the release of the solution was provided.
They were able to diagnose a difficult fault… because the problem had been human generated without our knowledge. They were able to pinpoint the result, and provide a way of reverting a manual operation that, from the manual, could result in definitive loss of data. The data was recovered, and a new feature added for the future.