Problem:
Prior to using ARM for managing risks they were tracked within the Engineering Workflow Management module of DOORS. This allowed users to easily create links and relationships between requirements and risks, as well as with other artefact from other modules like Engineering Test Manager (test suites and test cases). Since moving to using ARM for managing all risks, there is no way to create these relationships other than exporting data e.g. to Excel and then attaching to each side of the process. This is time consuming, not a great user experience and results in data that is not dynamically updated. Reporting on all elements of the network is also a challenge as there is not common point of reference or way of sharing the data between the systems.
All project risks are now managed in ARM, all risks need to consider their impact on requirements and all the requirements need to have been analysed for the associated risks. Clarity on these relationships is required both internally and also in compliance reports for delivery customers.
Potential Solution:
IBM Jazz / DOOR NextGen defines and API framework standard called OSLC which is designed to facility data exchange between the modules and artifacts. All the DOORs module provide this functionality inherently and use OSLC to register and then share data. Security is applied at OSLC level so that users only see data for projects that they are participating in. Explore extending ARM to provide an OSLC ‘plugin’ or integration point that would allow risk from ARM to be searched for and presented in DOORs, then link to various artifacts and that from the ARM side those relationships would be shown and new relationships could be added.
Ideally this would involved the user performing something similar to below on ARM side:
go to risk in ARM
click on an external relationships section
select the DOORS NextGen Requirements data source
search for a requirement
confirm to create the relationship
stub information e.g. id and title shown in artifact
hover over the stub and pop up displayed showing more detailed information
Ideally this would involve the user performing something similar in DOORS side :
go to artifact e.g. a requirement in DOORs
click on the relationships section
select the ARM data source
search for a risk
confirm to create the relationship
stub information e.g. id and title shown in artifact
hover over the stub and pop up displayed showing more detailed information
Benefits:
Data is managed and owned solely by the system of record, minimum duplication and transfer of data between systems other than the references required to make the connections plus basic stub info.
The business will be able to much more easily and quickly identify any potential knock on effects from a change to requirements, the wider impact of risks on the project delivery of the requirements. Without being able to defined and represent the network of related artifacts this is a real challenge, as the network is not easily visible or interrogated.
It’s a challenge at the moment to demonstrate compliance to customers when the data is not connected and lives in disparate systems, solving this would save time and reduce the burden of compliance reporting and give greater confidence in the information being presented.
