Collaboration & Alignment

Remote Work Check-in: Best Practices from Jama Connect™ Customers

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We’ve stayed in contact with our Jama Connect customers as they’ve transitioned to a remote work reality. Teams are working through a lot of changes as they manage new product timelines, supply chain disruption and new market demands. Through it all they continue to prioritize innovation and timelines.  

One common theme emerged among these teams: Productivity in remote work demands teams take time to evaluate how they can optimize the Jama Connect platform to work smarter. Areas of focus: Teams want to improve their process, help people become more efficient, and take advantage of all the platform’s capabilities. 

Here’s the breakdown.

 

1. Optimize the way you use Jama Connect to improve your process.

 

When you go remote, it’s easy to be tempted by the plethora of communication tools. They all have their time and place. But engineering teams require more focus and tighter alignment. Collaboration and communication tools built into the context of where the work is actually being done helps reduce confusion and minimize disruption. 

Jama Connect ensures decisions get made inside the process, not in silos. There’s not an email here, or a Slack communication there to explain what needs to happen next. Everyone stays on the same page—a crucial need when your teams are remote. You reduce the risk of building off the wrong information which can cause delays and rework. 

Learn more in Optimizing Your Product Development Process Through Team Collaboration: Strategies for Systems Engineers 


2. Check the way you use the technology in Jama Connect. 
 

When your teams work remotely, the ways you’re not using your technology to its fullest potential can become glaringly apparent. Every Jama Connect technology capability, even ones that aren’t about collaboration, take on greater importance.

Tightening product traceability is a best practice Jama Connect customers supporting remote teams recommend. The way companies do business is changing fast, and the ability to manage change is critical. When requirements traceability is carried out correctly, teams can accurately assess the impact of changes, track the full history of product development, keep everyone in sync, and consistently improve the quality of the products being built — in every project, and every release.

In Jama Connect you can extend traceability beyond the engineering processes to link development and test activities back to the business rationale. And, coverage analysis can help a team find gaps and understand positive and negative progress quickly. 

You can learn more in Five Tips for Requirements Traceability.  
 

 3. Educate your teams about the Jama Connect tools.

 

Now’s the time to take advantage of the full collaborative capabilities of the Jama Connect platform. Tools like Review Center make it easy for remote teams to work together.  

 In the Review Center, you can send items like systems specifications or test plans for an unlimited amount of reviews with as many contributors as you want, including engineers and testers. Everyone in that review receives an email notification and can approve, reject, and give feedback on every individual requirement or section of a document that needs review. You can keep track of who contributed, what their role is, how much time they’ve spent in the review, and their overall level of completion. 

Learn more about the Review Center in Best Practices for Jama Connect Review Center.

As countries begin to open up, we’ll be here to update you on ways to adjust your teams and workflows so you can maintain momentum. Check back often.

 

Get more help optimizing Jama Connect so you can improve efficiency and productivity for your remote teams. Learn about our Rapid Optimization Workshops, now available as a remote service.READ MORE

 

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