Tag Archive for: IBM DOORS Next

Tag Archive for: IBM DOORS Next

What Is IBM DOORS Software? Features, Limitations, and Why Teams Are Switching

What Is IBM DOORS Software? Features, Limitations, and Why Teams Are Switching

If you’ve worked in aerospace, defense, or medical devices, you’ve almost certainly run into IBM DOORS. It’s long been one of the most widely used requirements management tools in regulated industries. But the engineering world has changed since DOORS was built, so a growing number of teams now question whether it still fits their workflows.

This guide breaks down what DOORS does, where it falls short for distributed, compliance-heavy programs, and how tools like Jama Connect® address the gaps.

What Is IBM DOORS Software?

IBM DOORS, or Dynamic Object-Oriented Requirements System, is a requirements management tool for capturing, tracing, and managing changes to requirements throughout development. It’s most common in aerospace, defense, medical devices, and automotive, where regulators expect every requirement to be traceable and every baseline to be documented.

DOORS originated in 1991 as Rational DOORS and today exists as two separate products. DOORS Classic (version 9.x) is the original desktop client, and DOORS Next Generation is a web-based application built on IBM’s Jazz architecture. Despite sharing a name, these are architecturally separate systems, so teams moving between them typically treat it as a full migration rather than an upgrade.

Why Teams Originally Invested in IBM DOORS

The needs that drove DOORS adoption still matter, but DOORS has not kept pace with how teams actually work today. These are the capabilities that made it the default choice for regulated programs:

  • Bidirectional traceability: DOORS became standard in regulated programs because it maintained linked relationships and an audit-friendly history of those links as requirements changed.
  • Read-only baselines: Baselines act as frozen snapshots, which fits stage-gate and V-model workflows where teams need an immutable reference at defined milestones.
  • Audit trails and signatures: For organizations under 21 CFR Part 11, electronic records expectations often drive tool and process choices.

Those capabilities explain why DOORS lasted so long in regulated programs, but they no longer set the tool apart the way they once did. They made DOORS a strong fit for document-centric development, which is also why organizations with established processes often keep it longer than they want to.

Key Features and Capabilities of IBM DOORS Software

Systems engineers and quality leads primarily use DOORS for requirements traceability, baselining, and custom scripting through DOORS eXtension Language (DXL), a scripting language for custom imports, reports, metrics, and tool connections. These are the core capabilities that drove DOORS adoption in regulated development:

  • Requirements capture and traceability: DOORS organizes requirements into module-based, hierarchical documents and tracks traceability relationships in its own repository, so teams can generate traceability matrices and coverage reports from the stored data.
  • Baselining and version control: Teams can create frozen baselines for project snapshots and compare versions to see what changed between releases, which fits stage-gate and V-model development workflows.
  • Change management: DOORS tracks every requirement modification with a full audit history, giving quality and compliance leads a record of what changed, when, and by whom.
  • DXL scripting and customization: Tool administrators build custom imports, automated reports, and integrations through DXL. Over time, these scripts tend to pile up and become their own maintenance burden.

These features worked well when most development happened in one building with one team, but that model breaks down quickly for distributed, multi-tool, and compliance-heavy programs.

Where IBM DOORS Software Falls Short

Teams tend to reconsider DOORS when the tool starts getting in the way of collaboration, compliance, or how fast engineers can move.

Outdated User Interface and Steep Learning Curve

The DOORS interface feels dated and inefficient for authoring, review, and navigation compared to current web-based tools. That friction shows up most during reviews, when large numbers of stakeholders need to read and comment quickly.

The learning curve makes this worse because DOORS requires careful upfront setup of its database and information architecture, and poor early design can create long-term cleanup work.

Limited Real-Time Collaboration

DOORS was designed for a world where engineers sat in the same building and passed documents through formal review gates. It has some web access, but real-time co-editing and inline comments on specific requirements aren’t built into the core product. When reviews require input from distributed teams across time zones, work tends to spill into email and Word documents instead.

No Cloud-Native Deployment Option

DOORS Classic is on-premises only, and even DOORS Next requires significant migration and administration effort to deploy. For organizations that need strict data residency, validated environments, or lower upgrade effort, that means ongoing IT work to keep servers running, patched, and validated.

High Administration and Maintenance Burden

For a lot of teams, the pressure point isn’t a single technical limitation. It’s the cumulative maintenance work that builds up around customization, reporting, and data cleanup, and it usually comes from a few predictable places:

  • Specialized scripting dependency: DXL-heavy environments often require a small set of specialists who maintain scripts, troubleshoot imports, and update reports as processes change.
  • Administration workload: Database design, permission models, and project setup can require dedicated tool administrators, particularly in multi-program organizations.
  • Migration rework: Custom logic built for DOORS Classic frequently has to be rebuilt when moving to DOORS Next or another requirements tool.

Once those support tasks become routine, the tool starts consuming engineering time instead of protecting it, and that’s usually when organizations start looking at alternatives.

The Business Risk of Staying on IBM DOORS Software

Beyond the day-to-day friction, these limitations carry real risk for regulated programs, from audit gaps to missed updates to downstream test cases and delayed decisions that compound over time.

Compliance Exposure in Regulated Industries

Regulations are changing faster than legacy desktop tools were built to handle. The FDA QMSR, which took effect on February 2, 2026, incorporates ISO 13485:2016 by reference, meaning FDA now directly enforces ISO 13485 as part of its own regulation. The FDA’s cybersecurity rules under Section 524B for “cyber devices” (devices that contain software or have network connectivity) also raise the bar for traceability between cybersecurity risk analysis, design, and postmarket activities.

In aerospace and defense, teams face similar pressure around DO-178 A, B, and C, where DOORS hasn’t kept pace with the frameworks auditors actually expect. Across all of these regulations, the expectation is the same: requirements need to link through design, risk, and testing from start to finish. If those links break, the gaps usually show up during audits or postmarket reviews, when it’s too late to fix things cheaply.

Rework, Delays, and Downstream Quality Failures

Regulatory exposure is one concern, but the day-to-day engineering cost is just as real. When requirements, risk, and test artifacts aren’t kept aligned, upstream changes don’t consistently flag downstream test cases or risk assessments. Engineers can keep building against outdated assumptions until the problem shows up at integration or verification.

At that point, the question shifts from whether a change is needed to how much rework the program can absorb without affecting milestones, quality targets, or certification timelines. The later these issues surface, the more expensive they are to fix, which is exactly why live traceability matters more than stored traceability.

Product Failures, Recalls, and Missed Launches

When traceability gaps go undetected long enough, the consequences move beyond schedule and budget. Products can fail to perform specified functions, customers can discover defects after launch, and entire releases can miss their deadlines or blow past cost targets.

In the worst cases, regulatory bodies reject submissions or require post-launch recalls. All of these trace back to the same root cause: requirements, verification, and risk management weren’t connected tightly enough to catch problems before they reached production.

What to Look for in a Modern Requirements Management Tool

The right replacement for IBM DOORS should keep traceability current instead of treating it as static documentation. These four capabilities separate current platforms from legacy ones:

  • Live change impact: When a requirement changes, every linked test case, design element, and risk item should be flagged automatically. Impact analysis should trace effects all the way downstream, not just one level deep.
  • Collaboration in context: Reviews, comments, and decisions should happen at the requirement or test level, with an audit-ready record of who decided what and when.
  • Open integration: The tool should connect to the rest of the engineering toolchain through APIs and standards without forcing every team into one vendor’s tool set.
  • Proven results in regulated environments: Look for documented case studies from teams in your industry. For example, Dexcom reported a 60% efficiency improvement in systems engineering after switching to Jama Connect.

Those criteria help teams tell the difference between tools that store traceability and tools that keep it current throughout development. For a structured breakdown, take a look at our Buyer’s Guide to Selecting a Requirements Management Solution.

How Jama Connect Compares to IBM DOORS Software

Jama Connect is a cloud-based requirements management and traceability system built for live traceability, web-based collaboration, and open integration across complex, regulated product development. That’s why it often comes up when engineering groups evaluate a DOORS Next migration.

Here’s how the two platforms compare across the most important capabilities:

Capability IBM DOORS Jama Connect
Traceability Stored traceability with manual baseline comparisons and matrix generation Live Traceability™ with automatic suspect flagging and real-time coverage tracking
Requirements quality No built-in quality scoring Jama Connect Advisor™ scores requirements against INCOSE rules and EARS patterns during authoring
Tool integration DXL scripting and custom connectors Jama Connect Interchange™ with bidirectional sync to Jira, Azure DevOps, and ReqIF, plus a REST API for custom integrations
Deployment On-premises (Classic) or Jazz server (DOORS Next) Cloud-native with no on-premises infrastructure for cloud deployments
Collaboration Desktop client; web access requires a separate server component (DOORS Web Access) Web-based with list, document, and trace views for distributed review

Here’s what each of the capabilities above actually looks like when you’re using Jama Connect:

  • Live Traceability: When a requirement changes, every linked downstream artifact (test cases, risk items, design elements) is automatically flagged as suspect so owners can review the impact and update the affected work. Traceability Information Models (TIMs), which define the expected relationships between artifact types, surface coverage gaps automatically instead of waiting for a manual matrix refresh.
  • Jama Connect Advisor: Scores requirements against INCOSE quality rules and EARS notation patterns during authoring, catching ambiguity and incomplete language before it propagates downstream. It also suggests refined rewrites so authors can fix flagged requirements in place, and can auto-generate test cases from approved requirements to speed up verification planning.
  • Jama Connect Interchange: Keeps Jama Connect in bidirectional sync with tools like Jira and Azure DevOps through ReqIF and REST APIs, replacing the custom DXL scripts that DOORS environments have to maintain.
  • Cloud-native deployment: Web-based access with list, document, and trace views, with no on-premises infrastructure required for cloud deployments.
  • Familiar interface: The list view resembles Excel for teams migrating from spreadsheets, and the document view reads like a structured specification for review, which reduces onboarding friction and keeps traceability from spilling back into email and spreadsheets.

The migration itself can also surface problems that were hidden inside DOORS for years. As one project manager put it after migrating, “The whole migration of the documentation over to Jama Connect was an eye-opener, especially how it revealed the large number of duplicate documents we had that could be significantly reduced.”

Why Teams Are Switching from IBM DOORS Software to Jama Connect

If your team is spending more time maintaining IBM DOORS than actually using it, that’s a good sign you’ve outgrown it. When reviews happen in email because the interface is too clunky, when traceability only gets updated right before an audit, and when a simple migration to DOORS Next feels like a full program in itself, the real cost is all the engineering time your team loses working around it.

In each case, the tool that was supposed to keep traceability current is now the reason it falls behind. If your team needs Live Traceability, cloud-based collaboration, and integration with the rest of your engineering toolchain without the maintenance overhead, Jama Connect is built for exactly that. See how other organizations have made the switch from IBM DOORS, or start your free 30-day trial to see Jama Connect in action.

This image shows the V Model of Live Traceability for product management.

Frequently Asked Questions About IBM DOORS Software

Is IBM DOORS still supported?

IBM still supports DOORS Next Generation, but DOORS Classic 9.6.x reached end of support in September 2025, and while 9.7.x has extended support, IBM has not announced new feature development. Teams still on Classic often find that moving to a platform like Jama Connect can be less disruptive than migrating to DOORS Next, since the DOORS Next migration requires rebuilding DXL scripts and reworking workflows anyway.

What is the difference between IBM DOORS Classic and IBM DOORS Next Generation?

DOORS Classic (9.x) is a desktop client with DXL scripting for customization. DOORS Next Generation is a web-based application on IBM’s Jazz architecture with different extension and workflow concepts. Because they’re architecturally separate, teams treat the move between them as a full migration, not an upgrade.

Why are engineering teams moving away from IBM DOORS?

Common triggers include unsustainable maintenance load, an interface that slows adoption among newer engineers, and the need for web-based collaboration. Regulatory changes like the FDA QMSR and FDA Section 524B also push teams toward connected traceability that legacy desktop tools weren’t designed to support. Platforms like Jama Connect are among the alternatives teams evaluate when moving off DOORS.

How do you migrate from IBM DOORS to another tool?

Teams commonly use ReqIF export/import to preserve hierarchy and trace relationships. API-based migration works for more complex transformations. The biggest variable is how much custom DXL logic needs to be rebuilt or replaced. For migration planning, see Jama Software’s DOORS alternative comparison.

Data-Driven Reports Show Jama Connect® Outperforms Key Competitors Polarion and Codebeamer

Data-Driven Reports Show Jama Connect® Outperforms Key Competitors Polarion and Codebeamer

Finding the right requirements management software can make or break your product development process. With countless options flooding the market, how do you separate genuine value from marketing hype? Two new comprehensive reports – Head-to-Head Requirements Management: Jama Connect® vs Polarion  and Head-to-Head Requirements Management: Jama Connect® vs Codebeamer -from SoftwareReviews provide the answer with data-driven insights that cut through the noise.

These head-to-head comparisons pit Jama Connect against two major competitors: Polarion ALM and Codebeamer. Based on verified user feedback from the July 2025 Data Quadrant Award, the results paint a clear picture of industry leadership that might surprise you.

The Data Behind the Decisions

SoftwareReviews, a division of Info-Tech Research Group with over two decades of research experience, doesn’t rely on vendor claims or marketing materials. Their methodology digs deep into real user experiences, collecting over 130 data points on each product across the entire software lifecycle.

Every review undergoes rigorous quality assurance to ensure authenticity. Only verified users with legitimate credentials can participate, creating a trustworthy foundation for decision-making. This approach reveals insights you won’t find in traditional product comparisons or vendor demonstrations.

The reports examine both quantitative metrics and qualitative feedback, measuring everything from technical capabilities to emotional satisfaction. This comprehensive view helps you understand not just what the software can do, but how it feels to work with it daily.

RELATED: The Benefits of Jama Connect: Supercharge Your Systems Development and Engineering Process

Five Critical Areas That Define Success

Strategy and Innovation

Your requirements management platform needs to evolve with your business. The reports evaluate how well each vendor demonstrates forward-thinking innovation and supports customer growth initiatives. Jama Connect shows particularly strong performance in helping customers innovate and continually improving their platform.

Users consistently report that Jama Connect inspires innovation within their organizations, while competitors struggle to maintain the same level of strategic vision. This matters because today’s software purchase becomes tomorrow’s competitive advantage — or disadvantage.

Service Experience

Technical support can make or break your software experience. When critical projects hang in the balance, you need responsive, effective support that treats your business with respect. The data reveals significant differences in how vendors handle customer relationships.

Jama Connect users report notably higher satisfaction with service quality, describing interactions as respectful, efficient, and time-saving. This translates to faster problem resolution and less downtime for your team.

Product Experience

Features matter, but user experience determines adoption success. The reports examine how well each platform enhances performance, maintains reliability, and protects organizational data. These factors directly impact productivity and user satisfaction across your entire team.

The comparison reveals substantial gaps in product experience metrics, with Jama Connect consistently outperforming competitors in reliability and productivity enhancement. Users describe the platform as performance-enhancing rather than burdensome.

Negotiation and Contract

Software procurement involves complex negotiations that set the tone for your entire vendor relationship. The reports evaluate how vendors handle contract discussions, pricing transparency, and initial relationship building.

Data shows marked differences in negotiation approaches, with some vendors prioritizing client interests while others focus primarily on their own objectives. These patterns often predict long-term satisfaction levels.

Conflict Resolution

Disputes and disagreements inevitably arise during software relationships. How vendors handle these situations reveals their true character and commitment to customer success. The reports examine trustworthiness, fairness, and integrity under pressure.

Results show significant variation in conflict resolution approaches, with some vendors maintaining professionalism while others become adversarial. Understanding these tendencies helps you choose partners who will support your success even when challenges arise.

RELATED: IBM Customers Choose Jama Connect the Most

Beyond Surface-Level Comparisons

Traditional software evaluations focus on feature checklists and pricing tables. These reports dig deeper into the human elements that determine real-world success. They examine emotional footprints, measuring user sentiment across multiple dimensions of vendor relationships.

The Net Emotional Footprint Score captures user feelings about vendor trustworthiness, respect, and fairness. These emotional responses predict long-term satisfaction better than technical specifications alone. The data reveals substantial differences between vendors in building positive user relationships.

Users don’t just evaluate software — they evaluate the entire experience of working with a vendor. This includes everything from initial sales interactions through ongoing support relationships. The reports capture these nuanced experiences that traditional product reviews miss.

RELATED: Companies Choose Jama Connect Over Codebeamer

Comprehensive Feature Analysis

The reports examine 11 core product features specific to requirements management, including:

  • Agile Work Management: Sprint planning, backlog management, and artifact hierarchy
  • ALM Integration: Cross-phase artifact integration through APIs and internal systems
  • Analytics and Reporting: Real-time dashboards and data extraction capabilities
  • Artifact Management: Creation, reuse, and audit capabilities for project artifacts
  • Collaboration: Real-time work sharing and communication features

Each feature receives detailed evaluation based on actual user experiences rather than vendor specifications. This reveals gaps between promised functionality and delivered value.

The analysis shows consistent patterns of performance across feature sets, helping you identify vendors who excel broadly rather than in isolated areas. This comprehensive view prevents costly surprises after implementation.

Vendor Capability Deep Dive

Beyond product features, the reports evaluate 11 essential vendor capabilities that determine long-term partnership success:

  • Business Value Creation: Ability to generate organizational value
  • Vendor Support: Quality and timeliness of customer assistance
  • Usability and Intuitiveness: Learning curves and adoption barriers
  • Implementation Ease: Deployment complexity and timeline predictability
  • Data Integration: Compatibility with existing systems

These capabilities often matter more than individual features because they affect every aspect of your software experience. Vendor support quality, for instance, impacts how quickly you resolve issues and implement new functionality.

The data reveals significant performance variations across these capabilities, with some vendors excelling consistently while others show uneven performance. This information helps you avoid vendors who might excel in sales presentations but struggle with execution.

RELATED: Discover Why Polarion Users Are Switching to Jama Connect

Making Data-Driven Decisions

Requirements management software represents a significant investment in both financial and organizational terms. The wrong choice creates cascading problems that affect project timelines, team productivity, and business outcomes. These reports provide the evidence needed to make confident decisions.

User feedback reveals real-world performance under actual business conditions. You’ll learn how software performs during high-stress periods, how vendors respond to urgent support requests, and how well platforms scale with growing requirements.

The comparative format lets you evaluate trade-offs between different approaches. Some vendors prioritize feature breadth while others focus on user experience. Understanding these strategic differences helps you align vendor strengths with your organizational priorities.

Your Next Steps

Don’t let requirements management software decisions rest on vendor demonstrations and marketing materials alone. These comprehensive reports provide verified user insights that reveal true performance patterns and vendor capabilities.

The data shows clear performance leaders across multiple evaluation categories, but your specific needs might prioritize different factors. Download both reports to understand the complete competitive landscape and identify the best fit for your organization.

Each report includes detailed breakdowns of user satisfaction metrics, feature comparisons, and vendor capability assessments. You’ll gain access to insights from verified users who’ve implemented these platforms in real business environments.

Requirements management affects every aspect of product development. Choose your platform based on comprehensive data rather than surface-level impressions. These reports provide the evidence you need to make decisions that drive long-term success.

Download the comprehensive head-to-head comparison reports against Polarion, Codebeamer, and IBM® DOORS Next® today and discover why users consistently choose Jama Connect for their requirements management needs.

Note: This article was drafted with the aid of AI. Additional content, edits for accuracy, and industry expertise by Mario Maldari, Makenna Imholte, McKenzie Jonsson, and Decoteau Wilkerson.

In this blog, we recap our webinar, “Migrating from IBM DOORS: Learn Why and How Rockwell Automation Made the Switch” – Click HERE to watch it in its entirety.

Migrating from IBM® DOORS®: Why and How Rockwell Automation Made the Switch

As a modern alternative to traditional legacy platforms like IBM DOORS, Jama Connect® enables digital transformation with a more efficient and user-friendly approach to managing risk and compliance. And although the benefits are innumerable, some organizations hesitate to migrate to a modern platform because they believe it’s a painful, slow process.

You will hear directly from one of our customers, Rockwell Automation, about why they decided to migrate from IBM DOORS and how they were able to successfully move to Jama Connect.

In this session, the Rockwell Automation team answered the following questions, and more:

  • Why was now the right time to switch tools?
  • How easy was it to switch environments while preserving IP?
  • How did the Jama Software® team assist you in making the migration process as smooth as possible?
  • What are the drivers for continued and expanded use of Jama Connect?
  • What are the key benefits you have realized since the migration?

BELOW IS AN ABBREVIATED SECTION OF THIS TRANSCRIPT ABOUT MIGRATING FROM IBM DOORS

Sheila King: Rockwell has some business units that have functional safety products with the 61508, and although it’s not widely used at Rockwell, teams have solved their traceability and requirements management at the business unit level using Classic DOORS. Other teams were using homegrown requirements tools and traceability, including Doxygen, and yet other teams were using Word documents and Excel spreadsheets and doing the manual brute force way of doing traceability and requirements. But then when the security landscape changed and we realized the vulnerabilities of industrial automation, the 62443 cyber security specification was invented and we decided that we needed to use it, so we needed a site certification and in the process we adopted the IBM CLM product with the DOORS Next Gen RTC for planning and RQM for test management.

Mario Maldari: What led you to consider making a switch away from the tools that you were using and why was that change needed?

King: We were already in the throes of adopting the CLM DNG tools and developing our product cycle in order to meet the 62443 certification, and we decided in that process that we really needed to up our game. We needed better planning tools for our test integration and continuous integration and delivery, and we needed better tools for requirements management. That included the ability to move data widely between products because that’s real life and in the current tools, the DOORS Next Generation (sometimes called DNG or DOORS NG) tools, we needed to use the ReqIF, which was really an administrative thing as opposed to people being able to move their own data. We also had the solution for DOORS NG and RQM and RTC and we hired a third party or we contracted a third party vendor to manage that and we decided we needed a better integration for that, for our vendor. For the tools themselves, we needed variant and configuration management and native real-time traceability.

RELATED: IEC 61508 Overview: The Complete Guide for Functional Safety in Industrial Manufacturing

Maldari: Can we spend a few minutes looking at the primary considerations you have for selecting Jama Connect as opposed to DOORS Next Generation?

King: Yeah. We actually created a grassroots working group to evaluate tools and we evaluated several. Our top two were of course Jama [Connect] and Helix. The tiebreakers were this, Jama Connect had functional safety-ready certification and anybody who goes through functional safety knows how much value that is for your audit. We needed a strong review center and Jama [Connect] has that. We needed baselines in order to be able to not have to use SAP for saving our documents. We like the rational database and the ability to configure different item types. We not only use Jama Connect for our requirements, but we use it for our threat models and our fault models, and we also liked a lot the structure, the permission structure that allows you to specify all the way down to requirement if you need to, how you’re going to protect your data in the tools. And with our fault and models or design for security and threat models, that is our business risk or business restricted setting.

Maldari: Thank you. We know the value of an organization’s environment is their data. You spend a lot of money buying tools and maintaining tools, but the real value is the data that you have inside of those tools. Can you share some of the concerns Rockwell had going into the migration?

King: First of all, we were going to having all our data in the cloud. And so we had our CISO team get involved in that and they did an evaluation because not only were we now putting requirements in the cloud, we were putting our source in the cloud with Git. We were putting our planning, our tests in the clouds, our anomalies in the cloud, some kind of scary stuff to have in the cloud, and so we had a CISO audit and they decided that it was very safe to do that. Secondly, when it comes to actually keeping our data safe, the truth is we asked Jama Connect to explain to us how they were going to keep it safe and they convinced us that they could, and so they’ll tell you how they kept our data safe.

Maldari: Maybe that’s a good transition to the next question. This is just a discussion around were there any specific steps you took to protect the data and IP?

King: Because we had such a short window for moving all the content over, we made backups as it was in our current tools and then moved them into the tools and we used the ReqIFs, the collections and all that stuff from DNG and just about every other way you can export data out of that and back it all up. And then once we moved it into Jama Connect, actually just handed it over to the Jama Software team and they imported it and then we migrated it and “Jama-tized” the data once we had it inside.

RELATED: Traceable Agile™ – Speed AND Quality Are Possible for Software Factories in Safety-critical Industries

Maldari: Maybe we could bring Preston into this as well. Can you and Preston share some of the details around the migration approach?

Preston Mitchell: Yes. I’ll go ahead and let Sheila start and then I’ll jump in after.

King: So just as I mentioned, we had six months to do it, so we had three phases that we started with. We worked with our stakeholders to identify all the content to be migrated, and then we again had the extremely tight window we elected, like I mentioned, to adopt, to bring it over into Jama Connect as is.

Mitchell: Thanks, Sheila. Yeah, the slide that’s being presented right now basically illustrates the standard migration approach utilized by the Jama Connect team and our partners. Every migration is going to have unique elements, needs, but in the case of Rockwell’s migration, this template married very well. As Sheila was taking care of the planning, we transitioned really seamlessly into analysis and discovery. During the discovery and proof of concept stages. We did come across a few issues, very common in migrations, so we required some customized tool development, but once we had validated the integration tools and the approach, the final stages was fairly straightforward process.

Sheila was generating all of the extracts from the legacy systems and she would transfer those to the Jama Software team and then we would load them into Jama Connect. And as Sheila said, in some cases we go through a cleaning of the data prior to migration, but again, given the short window for this migration, we just elected to bring all the data over from DOORS Next Gen, which in some cases some of the modules had over 170 attributes, which we were able to consolidate and clean down quite a bit later. But again, with a short timeframe, we just elected to bring everything in as is cleaning up afterwards and Jama Connect because they were coming up against a pretty critical deadline where they were losing access to their DOORS instance.

Maldari: That sounds pretty comprehensive. Sheila, now that you’re at the other end, how would you rate your experience around migration and user your satisfaction?

King: Oh, well, the team was just great. They worked really hard to integrate and migrate our data. Anytime we ran into an issue, we got the software group and I keep forgetting the name of the team, I just call them the software group because that’s what we are, software. Anyway, but they’d come in and they would write some code to add to their data exchange to manage the data that was coming out of the tools, and it just worked really very well. The Classic DOORS group had a hundred and I can’t remember, seven fields, and we were able to talk them down into just, I think it’s 10 now.

WATCH THIS WEBINAR IN ITS ENTIRETY:
Migrating from IBM® DOORS®: Learn Why and How Rockwell Automation Made the Switch

DOORS Next Generation or Jama Connect: A Side-by-Side Look at Requirements Management Platforms

Why Modern Engineering Teams Aren’t Using IBM DOORS or DOORS Next Generation for Requirements Management

If you’re currently using DOORS for requirements management, you likely know that moving to a different solution is necessary, and you might be considering DOORS Next Generation. However, fast-shifting market dynamics require a new approach to accelerate innovation. As a modern alternative to traditional legacy platforms, Jama Connect® enables digital transformation with a more efficient and user-friendly approach to managing risk and compliance.

To adapt to increasing industry challenges and complexities, innovative organizations are now requiring best-in-class software to scale development, reduce risk, save time, and ensure compliance to quality and safety regulations — and migrating to a new requirements management tool, will be a necessity to keep pace with the competition.

The leader in requirements management software, Jama Connect outranks IBM DOORS Next®
for implementation time, adoption, ROI, & market presence

 

Related: Why Migration Efforts from IBM Rational DOORS to DOORS NG Are Failing – And an Alternative Path.

5 Key Reasons Teams Are Choosing Jama Connect over DOORS NG

Considering choosing Jama Connect over DOORS Next? Jama Connect consistently stands above DOORS Next (for requirements management tools) in the G2 Grid® for overall satisfaction, performance, user experience, collaboration, reviews and approvals, implementation, usability, user adoption, and overall ROI.

Fastest Time to Market/ROI

  • Deploy in weeks, not months with easy updates and high performance
  • Pre-configured frameworks to satisfy industry regulations
  • Intuitive user interface and workflows that drive efficiency
  • Jama Software in-house industry-focused subject matter experts

Highest Adoptability

  • Intuitive design with a better UX and ease of use that enables adoptability across teams and disciplines
  • Lowest learning curve, minimal training required
  • Actionable visibility into status, progress, and risks
  • Permissions-controlled access for your entire organization

Maximum Collaboration

  • Designed for connecting remote / distributed development teams and disciplines
  • Real-time communication captured in context
  • Secure access for internal and external stakeholders
  • Delivers end-to-end Live Traceability™
  • Improves productivity

Lowest Total Cost of Ownership

  • Simple and straightforward administration
  • No need for custom scripting or continuous updating
  • Scales easily without big infrastructure investment
  • Unlimited no-cost access for extended internal/external stakeholders

Built for the Modern Engineering Stack

  • Jama Connect Traceable MBSE™ encourages and enables MBSE approach
  • Integrates with market-leading tools with open REST API
  • Teams can work in preferred tools with complete traceability visible in Jama Connect

Related: Moving from Modules to Models – Is it finally time to leave IBM® DOORS® behind?

See how DOORS Next stacks up against Jama Connect
in key areas below.

DOORS Next vs Jama Connect

Jama Connect is a proven IBM DOORS and DOORS NG alternative with flexible, scalable, and reliable migration solutions, including:

  • Operation in an IBM DOORS supply chain. Innovative companies leverage Jama Connect to get up and running fast with a modern requirements management process that tightly aligns with industry standards and practices that support regulatory compliance. Organizations can connect to customers and suppliers that use IBM DOORS through Data Exchange for Jama Connect.”
  • Integration services. Jama Connect provides integration with key product development lifecycle tools.
  • Coexists with IBM DOORS. IBM DOORS is embedded in many organizations and may take some time to migrate completely. Progressive teams and divisions can get started on Jama Connect quickly while the larger organization works toward replacing existing programs over time. This approach is supported through a mix of integration, migration, and exchange services.

DOORS has been a faithful requirements management tool that has served the product development community well for almost 30 years. But to stay competitive, it’s necessary to switch to a modern requirements management solution like Jama Connect.

Jama Software®‘s Live Traceability™ allows engineering teams to quickly and easily access the latest and most complete information for any requirement, no matter the stage of development or tools used. This real-time capability boosts productivity by ensuring teams work with the latest data and reduces risks like delays and defects by finding issues early. Research shows that issues found late can be much more expensive to fix, which is why Live Traceability is so important. Jama Connect® helps overcome the limitations of older tools, leading to better results in many industries such as automotive, medical devices, aerospace & defense, and more.

To learn more about making the switch from IBM DOORS or DOORS Next Generation to Jama Connect, download our datasheet.


DOORS for Requirements Management


Why Migration Efforts from IBM Rational DOORS to DOORS NG Are Failing – And an Alternative Path.

Why Migration Efforts from IBM Rational DOORS to DOORS NG Are Failing – And an Alternative Path.

IBM Rational DOORS was built in 1991 when it became clear that document-based tools such as Microsoft Office did not offer the capabilities able to manage and analyze requirements traceability. And while it was revolutionary at the time, not much has changed about the product in over 30 years.

Many teams are looking to switch away from Rational DOORS because of IT mandates, poor usability due to an antiquated user interface, lack of collaborative features, and a host of other reasons.

However, thinking that migrating to DOORS Next Generation is the easiest, most logical next step is a mistake. In this post, we’ll discuss why many migration efforts from IBM Rational DOORS to DOORS NG are failing, and provide a simpler, more modern alternative.

Considering a switch? If you want to move away from IBM Rational DOORS, you are not constrained by a specific path of migration.

Leaders might already understand the need to switch from Rational DOORS, but they aren’t sure of the next best step. Some lean toward switching to IBM DOORS NG with the assumption that it will be easier to learn and deploy than starting from scratch with a new solution.

However, the only thing that DOORS Next shares with the original DOORS is the name; otherwise, it’s a completely different platform that takes the same level of migration effort that any migration away from DOORS legacy would take. Any expensive DXL customizations — which can sometimes add up to more than a million lines of code — cannot be migrated to DOORS Next.

As you make your decision on whether to migrate away from DOORS or not, consider the risks associated with DOORS and the benefits of choosing a different option.

Risks may include:

  • Loss of control and employee frustration. Employees frustrated with DOORS work outside of DOORS, most often in Microsoft Word or Excel, which means that requirements are no longer maintained in a central system and a rigorous process is not followed. This leads to an inability for management to monitor key metrics for the end-to-end process to identify process risk patterns.
  • Increased operational costs. Continuing the existing path of using DOORS increases an organization’s risk and expense complying with ever demanding IT security regulations.
  • Disruption in business. New users are reluctant to pick up the antiquated user interface of DOORS, expecting software to be as intuitive as applications in their social environment. Not having the ability to move fast and scale business to meet innovative market demands will cost your business time and resources.
  • Missed market opportunities. Errors, defects, and omissions not found until the end of the process cause costly delays and overruns. A company’s long-term success can be hindered by delayed launches and missed market opportunities.
  • Increased exposure to risk in regulated markets. A requirements management tool helps you stay compliant and increase visibility in regulated markets. Limited customer and cross-functional involvement in the review and approval of requirements and a lack of stakeholder alignment create unnecessary risks. And, the absence of process exception tracking, which determines if requirements have been omitted or modified, creates additional exposure. With more stakeholders refusing to use DOORS, compliance is checked after the fact with the arduous task of tool admins importing data and then running trace analysis. Extended stakeholders who are using DOORS are only able to see any errors long after they have been introduced and eventually imported.
  • Distraction from the core business. An ineffective requirements management tool encourages organizations to create customizations rather than simply configuring a tool to meet process needs. Developing and maintaining ad-hoc customizations forces an organization to focus on how to create requirements management functions rather than focus on core business. A modern requirements management solution enables teams to work faster and more efficiently, leading to faster time to market.

Related: The Inside Story: Data-Model Diagnostics for IBM® DOORS®

Need more proof? Here’s what IBM says about migrating from IBM Rational DOORS to DOORS NG

Looking at Rational DOORS and DOORS NG Side-by-Side

It may sound like migrating from Rational DOORS and DOORS NG is just a click of a button, the two systems have completely different infrastructure, processes, and structure. It’s a very complex and manual process. In fact, migrating to DOORS NG will cause major architectural shifts that will impact performance and require extensive employee training.

DOORS

Related: Requirements Traceability, Does My Data Matter?

There are a number of data types, including historical data, that can’t be migrated at all. But don’t take it from us; IBM says it themselves.

Additionally, there is no upgrade path from Rational DOORS to DOORS NG

5 Common Migration Myths Debunked

Transitioning to a new solution doesn’t have to be challenging; however, there are some assumptions that mislead us into thinking that difficulty is inevitable. Consider the following myths:

MYTH 1: Migrating away from IBM solutions will be more expensive. The amount of work that goes into upgrading to DOORS Next or transitioning to a new RM solution is the same, differentiated only by the quality of the tool and services available to help with migration. An option other than the DOORS family is most often a better fit for your organization.

MYTH 2: Customization will carry over to DOORS Next. You spent a lot of time customizing IBM DOORS and may believe those customizations will transition seamlessly to DOORS Next. However, this isn’t the case and is the reason selecting a different solution doesn’t involve more work.

MYTH 3: DOORS is already deployed and cheap to maintain. Continuing the current path with IBM DOORS is an expensive option in the long term, and often requires dedicated personnel. Switching to an alternative RM solution can improve efficiency while saving money.

MYTH 4: Business disruption is too difficult. The right RM tool will empower teams to effectively hit deadlines, collaborate, and improve business outcomes

MYTH 5: The user experience will suffer., Many people refuse to use DOORS due to a challenging user experience. DOORS Next is a completely new tool with a new user experience. Adopting a user-friendly solution allows teams to collaborate far more effectively as team members can accelerate concepts, designs, and validations for faster times to market.

Related: Moving from Modules to Models – Is it finally time to leave IBM® DOORS® behind?

Migration Away from IBM Rational DOORS is Inevitable – Here’s An Alternate, Easier Path

The fact is, IBM DOORS is extremely outdated, and at some point, updates and support will inevitably end.

If you’re currently using DOORS, you likely know that moving to a different solution is necessary, and you might be considering DOORS Next. However, fast-shifting market dynamics require a new approach to accelerate innovation. As a modern alternative to traditional legacy platforms, Jama Connect® enables digital transformation with a more efficient and user-friendly approach to managing risk and compliance.

Customers agree, naming Jama Connect the overall leader (#1) in requirements management software on G2, outranking IBM DOORS Next for implementation time, adoption, ROI, and market presence.

Jama Connect is a proven IBM DOORS alternative with flexible and reliable solutions, including:

Operation in an IBM DOORS supply chain. Innovative companies leverage Jama Connect to get up and running fast with a modern requirements management process that tightly aligns with industry standards and practices that support regulatory compliance. Organizations can connect to customers and suppliers that use IBM DOORS through Data Exchange for Jama Connect.

Integration services. Jama Connect provides integration with key product development lifecycle tools.

Coexists with IBM DOORS. IBM DOORS is embedded in many organizations and may take some time to migrate completely. Progressive teams and divisions can get started on Jama Connect quickly while the larger organization works toward replacing existing programs over time. This approach is supported through a mix of integration, migration, and exchange services.

Are you considering DOORS for requirements management or considering making a switch? Learn more in our eBooks, Why Move Away from IBM® DOORS® Legacy, and Why Now? and Moving from DOORS Next® to Jama Connect® for Requirements Management

Achieving Live Traceability™ with Jama Connect®

Jama Software®‘s Live Traceability™ allows engineering teams to quickly and easily access the latest and most complete information for any requirement, no matter the stage of development or tools used. This real-time capability boosts productivity by ensuring teams work with the latest data and reduces risks like delays and defects by finding issues early. Research shows that issues found late can be much more expensive to fix, which is why Live Traceability is so important. Jama Connect® helps overcome the limitations of older tools, leading to better results in many industries such as automotive, medical devices, aerospace & defense, and more. To learn more, visit Buyer’s Guide: Selecting a Requirements Management and Traceability Solution

To learn more about the three flexible approaches to support companies moving away from IBM DOORS and how our migration team can help, download our datasheet.


DOORS for Requirements Management


Considering DOORS® for requirements management? There is a more modern solution.

Considering DOORS® for requirements management? There is a more modern solution.

If you’re considering IBM® DOORS® for requirements management, it might be because it’s considered a “safe” move, you’ve used it in the past, or because you’re unaware that there’s a significantly more modern and easier to use alternative to DOORS requirements management.

IBM DOORS was an amazing tool – when it was originally published in 1991, over 30 years ago. DOORS for requirements management has many capabilities for working in regulated industries, but the limitations far outweigh the benefits. It does not deal well with increasing complexity or the need for collaboration and seamless integration in existing tool ecosystems. Let’s have a look at some of the limitations of DOORS:

Traceability: DOORS has powerful traceability capabilities, but they are hidden behind a cumbersome interface. This leads to outdated traces. Users find traceability maintenance to be difficult with DOORS, and sometimes traces are created “after the fact” for compliance audits and nothing else. This is a missed opportunity. Having a more modern tool, like Jama Connect® with an easy-to-use traceability matrix creates transparency and confidence when reacting to change. Traceability also enables agility.

Related: What is Requirements Traceability and Why Does it Matter for Product Teams

Change Management: The traceability of DOORS does support change management, e.g., via suspect links in principle. Unfortunately, this information is hidden and hard to utilize. Compare that to the actionable traceability of Jama Connect, which proactively points out issues in the traceability matrix and suggests how to fix them, instead of doing this reactively, after-the-fact.

Compliance Reporting: DOORS requirements management allows you to report on virtually everything – but almost everything requires custom scripting with its proprietary scripting language, DXL. Unless you have a responsive (often costly) programmer on your team, you will have a hard time getting the information you need, when you need it.

Best Practices: Every “module” (document) in DOORS has its own fields, and without an in-house expert, users sometimes find themselves with little guidance on how to use the tool. This results in inconsistencies, which in turn results in confusion and lack of transparency. Consider two “system specifications” with inconsistent data values for “priority.” Likewise, standardized workflows guide users through their daily work. In DOORS, you need a programmer to provide this functionality.

Related: Requirements Traceability, Does My Data Matter?

Market Drivers Are Pushing Engineering Teams and Technology to Evolve Past IBM DOORS’ Capabilities

Today’s products and software have become more complex. This complexity, combined with rapidly evolving customer and market demands, is forcing engineering teams to change the way they work. Now, far more stakeholders need to get involved in the requirements, driving the need for requirements tools to be more collaborative and have functionality that is applicable to diverse users.

Organizations that successfully transform to support this new way of working understand that effective and optimized product and system development requires highly collaborative solutions and methodologies.

To reduce risk in product development while still accelerating system design and delivery, teams need access to real-time data and alignment across disparate teams as well as across engineering, business, and product management lifecycles.

Leading-edge companies who are successfully supporting transformation of their engineering teams:

  • Invest in new technologies and agile processes to continually improve product development: Engineering teams prefer to make their own decisions about which best-of-breed solutions support their specific discipline and optimization of their activities – one single tool will not fit all users’ needs. It’s no longer possible for a Prime Contractor or OEM to mandate a single product or vendor across supply chains, and in fact, standards such as ReqIF (Requirement Interchange Format) and OSLC (Open Services for Lifecycle Collaboration) have come about to help products work better together. Modern development solutions prioritize integration across the ALM-PLM ecosystem.
  • Take a data-driven approach to product development: An organization’s investment in their data is far more than the investment they make in tools, and the primary focus now comes down to availability of data and how that flows across an engineering community (integration) and the value chain (exchange). What is required is a loosely coupled approach that ties together the necessary metadata across disparate tools in a way that connects the desired outcome (user and system requirements) to downstream activities – the digital thread. The digital thread is the best approach to reduce the risk of negative product outcomes while preserving engineering autonomy and productivity.
  • Support more formal processes to address increased regulation: As product complexity increases, so has the need for more formal processes and compliance with industry standards. Best practices for systems engineering have been prescribed in many industries. This formal process adoption started with the need to comply with aerospace standards such as DO178 or ISO 9001. Now we see engineering regulation or compliance needs increase across automotive, medical, finance, and other industries, which require the same level of rigor in their development process. Investment in tools that support the generation of the necessary proof of-process compliance to standards, most commonly: requirement validation, verification, traceability, risk assessments, and test results, are critical to supporting efficiency while reducing risk.

Related: What is DOORS and Why Does DOORS Software Fall Short for Requirements Management

IBM DOORS for Requirements Management vs. Jama Connect

Today’s product development teams must innovate and adapt quickly to changing market demands in order to remain competitive. Many find legacy solutions like DOORS are unable to adapt to support these needs. The following are the top reasons why some of the world’s most forward-thinking companies are electing to switch to Jama Connect:

Easy to use, intuitive modern user experience

Jama Connect supports multiple development methodologies and engineering disciplines to drive cross-team collaboration and alignment.

Flexible, scalable, and secure deployment models that provide manageable total cost of ownership (TCO)

Jama Software offers flexible license and deployment models with unlimited licenses for reviewers to promote collaboration across product development teams. Deployed in the cloud or on-premise, the solution ensures flexible access for distributed teams anywhere.

Open architecture to integrate with the tools teams want to use

Jama Connect enables integration with best-of-breed tools across the entire product development lifecycle. We provide a powerful network of options to get the right technology stack aligned to meet each client’s unique business needs.

Achieving Live Traceability™ with Jama Connect®

Jama Software®‘s Live Traceability™ allows engineering teams to quickly and easily access the latest and most complete information for any requirement, no matter the stage of development or tools used. This real-time capability boosts productivity by ensuring teams work with the latest data and reduces risks like delays and defects by finding issues early. Research shows that issues found late can be much more expensive to fix, which is why Live Traceability is so important. Jama Connect® helps overcome the limitations of older tools, leading to better results in many industries such as automotive, medical devices, aerospace & defense, and more. To learn more, visit Buyer’s Guide: Selecting a Requirements Management and Traceability Solution

Are you considering DOORS for requirements management or considering making a switch? Check out this webinar, Moving from Modules to Models – Is it finally time to leave IBM® DOORS® behind? Watch it here

DOORS for Requirements Management

Why Move Away from IBM® DOORS® Legacy, and Why Now?: Part 2

This is Part 2 of a series examining the role legacy requirements management solutions, such as IBM® DOORS®, play in introducing project risk to the product development process. To read Part 1,  visit Why Migrate, Why Now?: Part 1

5 Common Migration Myths Debunked

Transitioning to a new solution doesn’t have to be challenging; however, there are some assumptions that mislead us into thinking that difficulty is inevitable. Consider the following myths:

MYTH 1: Migrating away from IBM solutions will be more expensive. The amount of work that goes into upgrading to IBM DOORS Next or transitioning to a new RM solution is the same, differentiated only by the quality of the tool and services available to help with migration. An option other than the DOORS family is most often a better fit for your organization.

MYTH 2: Customization will carry over to DOORS Next. You spent a lot of time customizing IBM DOORS and may believe those customizations will transition seamlessly to DOORS Next. However, this isn’t the case and is the reason selecting a different solution doesn’t involve more work.

MYTH 3: DOORS is already deployed and cheap to maintain. Continuing the current path with IBM DOORS is an expensive option in the long term, and often requires dedicated personnel. Switching to an alternative RM solution can improve efficiency while saving money.

MYTH 4: Business disruption is too difficult. The right RM tool will empower teams to effectively hit deadlines, collaborate, and improve business outcomes.

MYTH 5: The user experience will suffer. Many people refuse to use DOORS due to a challenging user experience. DOORS Next is a completely new tool with a new user experience. Adopting a user-friendly solution allows teams to collaborate far more effectively as team members can accelerate concepts, designs, and validations for faster times to market.

requirements-management-hub

The fact is, IBM® DOORS® is extremely outdated, and at some point, updates and support will inevitably end.

If you’re currently using DOORS, you likely know that moving to a different solution is necessary, and you might be considering DOORS Next. However, fast-shifting market dynamics require a new approach to accelerate innovation. As a modern alternative to traditional legacy platforms, Jama Connect® enables digital transformation with a more efficient and user-friendly approach to managing risk and compliance.

Customers agree, naming Jama Connect the overall leader (#1) in requirements management software on G2, outranking IBM DOORS Next for implementation time, adoption, ROI, and market presence.

Jama Connect is a proven IBM DOORS alternative with flexible and reliable solutions, including:

  • Operation in an IBM DOORS supply chain.“Innovative companies leverage Jama Connect to get up and running fast with a modern requirements management process that tightly aligns with industry standards and practices that support regulatory compliance. Organizations can connect to customers and suppliers that use IBM DOORS through Data Exchange for Jama Connect.”
  • Integration services. Jama Connect provides integration with key product development lifecycle tools.
  • Coexists with IBM DOORS. IBM DOORS is embedded in many organizations and may take some time to migrate completely. Progressive teams and divisions can get started on Jama Connect quickly while the larger organization works toward replacing existing programs over time. This approach is supported through a mix of integration, migration, and exchange services.

“Jama Connect lowers the complexity and burden of having to manually keep requirements, architecture and specifications all in sync and traced to each other. It’s a formidable problem that is virtually eliminated courtesy of Jama without the hassle of having to learn a clunky UI (IBM DOORS).” Alan M., Chief Product Officer

Jama Connect® created Live Traceability™ management which reduces project development risk by forming a digital thread through siloed development, test, and risk activities. The flexible platform is designed to support the end-to-end product development process with:

  • A simple, single repository so it’s easy for remote teams to gather, review and execute on requirements.
  • Structured reviews and collaboration — teams can elicit feedback, review product features in real-time with stakeholders and track critical decisions across teams and locations.
  • Change management throughout product development — end-to-end traceability and real-time collaboration improve visibility and make it easier to adapt to changes and track their impact.
  • Integrations across the ALM-PLM ecosystem.

Moving from IBM® DOORS® Next to Jama Connect® for Requirements Management

To adapt to shifting and ever-increasing challenges and complexities and keep pace with the competition, innovative organizations are now requiring best-in-class software to scale development, reduce risk, save time, and ensure compliance to quality and safety regulations.

Download this paper to learn how Jama Connect stands out above DOORS Next in the G2 Summer 2021 report for requirements management in the following areas:

  • Overall satisfaction
  • Implementation
  • User adoption
  • ROI

Go live with Jama Connect 2.7x faster than IBM® DOORS Next®

In Conclusion

Products, systems, and software development are only getting more complex and not modernizing your requirements management process will increase the probability of negative outcomes in your product development process.

As your team requires the ability to adapt, innovate, and grow, continuing to use IBM DOORS will become more difficult and will introduce significantly more risk in your product development process. Think about DOORS as a landline rotary phone that stopped being on the receiving end of upgrades after the industry switched to marketing push-button touchtone phones. (And now there are smartphones available, which are mobile and make you even more connected and productive.)

Transitioning to new technology provides your teams with the tools required to innovate, meet deadlines, and succeed. A modern requirements solution can help you to define, manage, and validate complex systems requirements while eliminating the risks and inefficiencies associated with documents and legacy systems.

Hear about the experiences of the more than 50 companies that have made the switch from IBM DOORS to Jama Connect.

Connect with us today to learn how you can enable end-to-end compliance, risk mitigation, and process improvement with our intuitive, award-winning requirements management platform.

To read this series in its entirety, visit this whitepaper: Why Move Away from IBM Doors Legacy and Why Now

Jama Connect vs. IBM® Rational® DOORS® — A Better Alternative to IBM DOORSProduct development teams face many challenges in today’s fast-moving and increasingly regulated environment. Potential missteps, however, can create an expensive ripple effect throughout the product development cycle, with the potential for missed deadlines, compliance issues and more.  

Real-time collaboration and the need for a single source of truth are critical to product development teams. Outdated tools often don’t deliver on these needs, and a misalignment between what a team needs and what a tool provides can hinder success. Requirements management tools that keep pace with your team’s evolving needs can help mitigate potential risks, improve efficiency and achieve faster results.  

If you’re currently using IBM DOORS, understanding the difference between the existing solution and more modern options can help you to determine the best next steps for your organization.  

Requirements Management and IBM DOORS 

Many organizations adopted IBM DOORS because they needed a requirements management tool for their teams and, at the time, it seemed like the best option. But much has changed since the creation of IBM DOORS, and the tool has quickly become outdated. Today’s teams need the ability to not only collaborate in real time but also to do so remotely. They also need to:  

  • Follow a consistent and common requirements practice.  
  • Create a single source of truth for requirements, ensuring that everyone on the team is working from the same information.  
  • Have easy integration so that requirements management is integrated into both core workflows and business to improve productivity.  
  • Be able to track requirements to develop, test and release new products.  

Development teams and critical stakeholders expect the tools they use to be as intuitive as the technology in other areas of their lives. Users of IBM DOORS, however, struggle with usability issues, leading many to not use the solution and opt instead to use outside programs, such as Word or Excel. This creates challenges within workflows, productivity and efficiency, and it introduces potential risks, eliminating the ability to have a single source of truth. But how did IBM DOORS become outdated, and what does it lack?  

RELATED ARTICLE: Is There Life After DOORS®?

The Advantages and Disadvantages of IBM DOORS  

Organizations are often tempted to maintain an outdated solution, even if it’s underperforming. Why? Because fear and worry exist when it comes to switching to a new solution, users often stay with the existing solution or upgrade to the next offering within the same organization (such as IBM DOORS Next).  

The advantage of staying with IBM DOORS is that you don’t need to invest in a new solution and undergo the adoption process that comes with transition. But delaying the switch to a new RM tool only delays the inevitable, because IBM DOORS will eventually go out of support, which will create many challenges, including potential security issues.  

A few common misconceptions around the advantages of IBM DOORS include:  

  • Upgrading to IBM DOORS Next is a less-expensive option. IBM DOORS Next is not IBM DOORS, it’s an entirely new tool with a new approach to requirements. In fact, the only thing the two have in common is in the name. Migrating to IBM DOORS Next might seem like the less-expensive option. However, the work that goes into upgrading to IBM DOORS Next and transitioning to an entirely new RM tool is the same. Moreover, selecting a different solution may help you improve efficiency and achieve ROI faster.  
  • Customizations will carry over to IBM DOORS Next. Organizations invested money and resources in IBM DOORS customizations (DXL), and you might believe that you can take these innovations with you when you move on to IBM DOORS Next. However, this isn’t the case, and selecting a different solution could allow for you to use fewer customizations.  
  • Business disruption is more significant with a different RM solution. Eventually, you’ll need to move away from IBM DOORS after the support is discontinued. The right RM solution will help teams more effectively hit deadlines, collaborate with greater ease and improve business outcomes, offsetting any upfront business transition.  
  • The user experience will suffer. Many people refuse to use IBM DOORS due to a challenging user experience; switching to a new RM tool may accelerate concept, design and validation processes, leading to faster times to market.  

If you’re considering making a switch, comparing various options can help determine which RM tool is best aligned with your needs. An innovative tool has the potential to reduce risk for project rework, expensive errors and compliance risks.  

What is the best alternative to IBM DOORS?  

If you want to move away from IBM DOORS, you aren’t constrained by a specific path to migration. So, what is the best alternative to IBM DOORS?  

The answer is found in examining both what your team needs most right now and what they may need in the future.  

Collaboration is a critical part of the workflow, especially with the increasing number of people working remotely. Organizations need a tool that supports digital transformation, has greater efficiency and is user-friendly enough that people will use it. 

Jama Connect is a modern alternative to traditional legacy platforms, such as IBM DOORS, and was named the overall leader (No. 1) in requirements management software on G2, outranking IBM DOORS Next for implementation, time adoption, ROI and market presence. The tool offers users a reliable solution with:  

Simplicity. Jama Connect provides an intuitive and modern user experience. Requirements management software supports multiple development methodologies and engineering disciplines to drive cross-team collaboration and alignment.  

Flexibility. Customization is a critical factor to product development teams, which ensures that they get the functionality they need most. Jama Connect provides customization, security development and a licensing model that delivers a lower total cost to ownership.  

Open. A poor experience is created when an RM tool doesn’t integrate with other tools that your team wants to use. Jama Connect allows for seamless integration with the most commonly used tools across the product development life cycle. You’ll have access to a powerful network of options to get the right technology stack aligned to your unique business needs.  

Simplicity, flexibility and the ability to easily integrate with other tools give your team the resources they need to create greater success in all of their projects. As you consider adopting RM tools such as Jama Connect, it helps to have a quick comparison to help guide your decision.  

RELATED: Q&A with a Former IBM® DOORS® Evangelist

IBM DOORS vs. Jama Connect — A quick comparison  

Adopting a new RM tool involves asking many questions, including the following: What is the implementation process? What are the costs and ROI? How easy is the tool to use? Consider the following as you weigh the advantages and disadvantages of IBM DOORS Next and Jama Connect.  

Adoption. Organizations worry that adopting a new solution will take too much time and money, so they often gravitate to a solution such as IBM DOORS Next, primarily because they assume adoption is easier. However, Jama Connect is actually 2.7x faster to adopt than IBM DOORS Next. Additionally, Jama Connect rated 80% in ease of administration, compared with IBM DOORS Next, which rated 71%.  

Return on investment. How fast will your investment pay off? This is a critical question for any new solution, and it’s important to note that ROI is achieved 45% faster with Jama Connect compared with IBM DOORS Next.  

Usability. Usability is a key reason many people refuse to use IBM DOORS and instead use email communication, Word, Excel or other outside applications. Users expect their RM experience to be as intuitive as applications in their social environment. Jama Connect rated 85% in “ease of doing business,” compared with IBM DOORS Next, which rated 74%. 

Supports remote working. The remote working trend is only expected to grow in the future. IBM DOORS lacks cloud capabilities, creating challenges with working anywhere, anytime. IBM Jama Connect creates a single repository so it’s easy for remote teams to gather, review and execute on requirements. Structured reviews and collaboration enable teams to elicit feedback, review product features in real-time with stakeholders, and track critical decisions across teams and locations. 

Moving forward with greater confidence   

Products, systems and software development are only getting more complex; so not modernizing your requirements management tool creates potential risks, such as negative outcomes in your product development process.  

As your team increasingly requires the ability to adopt, innovate and grow, continuing to use IBM DOORS will only become more difficult and potentially introduce risk into your product development process.  

Transitioning to a new requirements management tool provides your team with the resources required to innovate, meet deadlines and succeed. You can more effectively define, manage and validate complex system requirements, all while eliminating the risk and inefficiencies associated with outside documents and legacy systems.  

Achieving Live Traceability™ with Jama Connect®

Jama Software®‘s Live Traceability™ allows engineering teams to quickly and easily access the latest and most complete information for any requirement, no matter the stage of development or tools used. This real-time capability boosts productivity by ensuring teams work with the latest data and reduces risks like delays and defects by finding issues early. Research shows that issues found late can be much more expensive to fix, which is why Live Traceability is so important. Jama Connect® helps overcome the limitations of older tools, leading to better results in many industries such as automotive, medical devices, aerospace & defense, and more. To learn more, visit Buyer’s Guide: Selecting a Requirements Management and Traceability Solution