Jama Connect and CATIA: Traceable MBSE™ Integration through Cameo DataHub
For teams taking a model-based systems engineering (MBSE) approach to systems development, managing complexity and ensuring traceability are crucial. Jama Software’s integration with CATIA Magic, powered by Cameo DataHub, offers a streamlined solution collaboration between requirements, architectures, and mission needs. This integration bridges the gap between Jama Connect and CATIA’s tools, allowing teams to enable a federated data architecture approach and equip stakeholders with a deeper understanding of the system model.
As a leader in MBSE solutions, CATIA Magic supports SysML standards. Its commitment to following these standards allows for seamless customization to industry-specific needs, making it a powerful choice for complex system engineering projects.
Integration Benefits
This integration enables real-time synchronization of any Jama Connect data or model element with CATIA Magic, ensuring that teams can collaborate effectively while maintaining traceability across both tools. This connection simplifies complex workflows and enhances the accuracy of a system model’s requirements and architecture, eliminating manual work and reducing errors.
By supporting custom data mappings, bidirectional synchronization, and standard authentication methods, this integration empowers system engineers to trace changes, visualize updates, and maintain alignment across their tools — ensuring not only more informed decision making but also an increased confidence in the system design, and a more efficient engineering process.
Capabilities from a dedicated requirements management tool such as Jama Connect have built-in collaboration, configuration management, baselines, managing traceability across multiple levels of objects, managing the verification and validation activities, controlling access and change to objects using role-based permissions, and showing real-time workflow states at the object level. Jama Connect’s built-in workflow engine and dashboards give any stakeholder a 1000-foot view, a measurable view of status and progress, and exceptions to the defined systems engineering process.
Note: This article was drafted with the aid of AI. Additional content, edits for accuracy, and industry expertise by Cary Bryczek, Matt Macias, Kenzie Jonsson, and Decoteau Wilkerson.
https://www.jamasoftware.com/media/2024/09/2024-9-24-jama-connect-with-catia-via-cameo-datahub.png512986Jama Software/media/jama-logo-primary.svgJama Software2024-09-24 03:00:492024-10-04 10:06:18Jama Connect® and CATIA: Traceable MBSE™ Integration through Cameo DataHub
Conquering the Top Test Management Challenges in Product, Systems, and Software Development
Effective test management is essential to deliver high-quality products, systems, and software on time and within budget. As development projects grow in complexity, managing the testing process becomes increasingly challenging. From coordinating teams to handling intricate data, test management can become a daunting task.
In this blog post, we’ll explore the top test management challenges and provide actionable strategies to conquer them.
1. Coordinating Cross-Functional Teams
The Challenge: One of the biggest challenges in test management is coordinating cross-functional teams. In modern development environments, testing often involves collaboration between developers, QA engineers, product managers, and sometimes even external stakeholders. Miscommunication or lack of alignment among these groups can lead to delays, errors, and ultimately, a product that doesn’t meet customer expectations.
The Solution: To overcome this challenge, establish clear communication channels and define roles and responsibilities early in the project. Implement regular stand-ups and meetings to ensure that everyone is on the same page. Additionally, using collaboration tools like Jira, Confluence, or Slack can streamline communication and keep everyone aligned. It’s also essential to foster a culture of collaboration where feedback is encouraged and acted upon.
“Jama Connect® covers all the needs regarding requirements management. If anyone requires a tool for requirements, tests, and traceability, Jama Connect is perfect for it.” – Software Test Manager,Software Test Manager, Industrial Conglomerates Company
2. Managing Test Data
The Challenge: Managing test data, particularly in complex systems or software development, is another significant challenge. Test data must be relevant, up-to-date, and secure, especially when dealing with sensitive information. Inadequate test data can lead to incomplete testing, which increases the risk of bugs and compromised quality in the final product.
The Solution: Invest in test data management tools – like TestRail – that allow you to create, maintain, and secure test data effectively. Mask sensitive information to comply with data protection regulations and ensure that test data is regularly updated to reflect real-world scenarios. Automating the generation and management of test data can also save time and reduce the potential for human error.
The Challenge: In today’s fast-paced development environments, especially with the adoption of Agile and DevOps methodologies, testing teams often struggle to keep up with rapid development cycles. Continuous integration and continuous deployment (CI/CD) practices demand that testing be both thorough and fast, which can be a difficult balance to achieve.
The Solution: Automate as much of the testing process as possible. Automated testing tools can run tests quickly and consistently, allowing your team to keep pace with rapid development cycles. Prioritize test cases based on risk and impact to ensure that the most critical areas are tested first. Integrating automated tests into your CI/CD pipeline will help catch issues early, reducing the need for last-minute fixes.
“If working in Aerospace / Avionics engineering, Jama Connect is a solid option to handle requirements, elements of detailed design and Test artifacts. It also enhances cross-team collaboration through the Review Center, the Stream feature.” – Arthur Bouisson,Process Engineer, RUAG Real Estate
4. Handling Complex Test Environments
The Challenge: Test environments are often complex, involving multiple systems, configurations, and platforms. Setting up and maintaining these environments can be time-consuming and prone to errors. Moreover, inconsistent test environments can lead to false positives or missed defects.
The Solution: Leverage virtualization and containerization technologies, such as Docker or Kubernetes, to create consistent and reproducible test environments. These technologies allow you to simulate various environments and configurations with ease, ensuring that tests are conducted in conditions that closely mirror production. Additionally, maintain a detailed configuration management process to document and track changes in test environments.
5. Ensuring Comprehensive Test Coverage
The Challenge: Achieving comprehensive test coverage is a constant challenge. With the increasing complexity of products and software, it’s easy to overlook certain areas, leading to gaps in testing that could result in critical defects.
The Solution: Adopt a risk-based testing approach. Focus on areas of the product that are most critical or most likely to fail, and ensure these areas receive the most attention. Use code coverage tools to identify untested parts of your codebase and supplement manual testing with automated tests to expand coverage. Regularly review and update your test cases to reflect changes in the product or system.
“We know Jama Connect has improved our test coverage (>15%) and allowed for faster more comprehensive reviews. Interestingly, these reviews have found bugs or issues that were not uncovered by traditional directed and random testing.” – Jama Administation,Jama Administation, Internet Software & Services Company
6. Managing Test Automation Effectively
The Challenge: While test automation is a powerful tool for improving efficiency and coverage, managing it effectively presents its own set of challenges. Common issues include maintaining the test scripts, dealing with flaky tests, and ensuring that automation delivers the expected return on investment.
The Solution: Focus on building robust, maintainable test scripts by following best practices, such as modularizing your code and using descriptive naming conventions. Regularly review and update your automation suite to remove flaky tests and ensure that it continues to provide value. Finally, measure the effectiveness of your automation efforts through metrics like defect detection rates and test execution times, and adjust your strategy as needed.
The Challenge: Finding the right balance between manual and automated testing is another common challenge. Over-reliance on one approach can lead to inefficiencies and missed defects.
The Solution: Develop a testing strategy that leverages the strengths of both manual and automated testing. Use automated testing for repetitive, time-consuming tasks, and manual testing for areas that require human judgment, such as user experience and exploratory testing. Regularly evaluate and adjust this balance as your project evolves and new testing needs arise.
“We screened three of the top requirements, risk, and test management tools and found Jama Connect scored much higher than the competitors. Jama Connect definitely meets our user needs.” – Principal Systems Engineer,Principal Systems Engineer, Health Care Providers & Services Company
8. Poorly Written or Incomplete Requirements
The Challenge: A testing suite can only be as good as the requirements being tested. Poor quality requirements or missing requirements = untrustworthy testing results and increased chances of defects. This is preventable and it’s much more expensive to catch issues with requirements by the time testing is happening. It’s far better to improve requirements quality earlier in the process.
The Solution: Educate team writing requirements on best practice frameworks (e.g. Easy Approach to Requirements Syntax – EARS). Review requirements for completeness and quality before building out test coverage. Make sure there’s collaboration between test writers/testers and requirements authors in case there are questions.
9. Undetected Impact of Changes
The Challenge: Changes happen, and no one likes to be blindsided. It can be challenging to accurately measure the impact of change and communicate to all impacted stakeholders. Not communicating changes to the appropriate stakeholders can lead to wasted resources on tests that don’t apply or need to be updated, delays, recalls, etc.
The Solution: Establish a change control process. Use a tool that helps you track and visualize the potential impact of changes across connected bodies of work, processes, and stakeholders. Review potential impact, discuss tradeoffs, and communicate with impacted stakeholders.
“Jama Software® is always looking for opportunities to improve its requirement management tool offering by adding new features and applications (e.g. Testing, Risk Management, V&V, SW application integration tools, etc.) – Jama Software listens to customer feedback for possible improvements to Jama Connect” – Director,Internet Software & Services Company
Conclusion
Test management is a critical component of successful product, systems, and software development. By addressing these common challenges with proactive strategies, you can improve the efficiency and effectiveness of your testing efforts. Clear communication, effective use of tools, and a balanced approach to testing will help you deliver high-quality products that meet both business objectives and customer expectations.
In the end, the key to conquering these challenges lies in continuous improvement. Regularly assess your testing processes, learn from past mistakes, and be willing to adapt to new tools and methodologies. With the right approach, even the most daunting test management challenges can be overcome.
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Note: This article was drafted with the aid of AI. Additional content, edits for accuracy, and industry expertise by Ashley Ernst and McKenzie Jonsson.
https://www.jamasoftware.com/media/2024/09/Test-Management-1.png10801920Ashley Ernst/media/jama-logo-primary.svgAshley Ernst2024-09-19 03:00:252024-09-19 11:06:32Conquering the Top Test Management Challenges in Product, Systems, and Software Development
Connect with the Jama Software® Team in Person: Our Fall 2024 Event Lineup
Join the Jama Software® team in person this fall at some of the industry’s most exciting events. Whether you’re attending to learn about the latest trends in cybersecurity, systems engineering, requirements management, or Model-Based Systems Engineering (MBSE), our team of subject matter experts will be on hand to meet, discuss, and demonstrate how Jama Connect® can help you tackle complex development challenges.
Below is our lineup of events for September and October—let’s connect!
SIDO Lyon Cyber Expo – Lyon, France – September 18-19, 2024
About this Event: Jama Software is exhibiting alongside Sofiatech at SIDO Lyon, the premier event for innovation in IoT, AI, XR, and Robotics! Visit us at Booth E334 — we’re excited to connect with forward-thinking leaders and innovators shaping the future.
AUTOMA 2024 – Dusseldorf, Germany – October 14-16, 2024
Industry: Oil & Gas
Jama Software Representatives:Mate Harsing, Solutions Architect and Vlad Tanasescu, General Manager – ICE
Booth Number: 23
About this Event: The AUTOMA Congress is a B2B networking event focused on automation and digitalization throughout the oil & gas lifecycle. Connect with us at Booth 30 to see how Jama Connect empowers oil & gas companies to improve efficiency, quality, and schedules while reducing overall costs.
About this Event: Insuretech Connect is the world’s largest gathering of insurance innovation! Discover solutions to your biggest challenges, gain access to unique and meaningful education, and meet the insurance industry’s best and brightest.
MedTech Conference – Toronto, Canada – October 15-17, 2024
Industry: Medical Device & Life Sciences
Jama Software Representatives:Vincent Balgos, Director – Solutions & Consulting and Jason Gaither, Senior Account Executive
Booth Number: 503
About this Event: The MedTech Conference in Toronto is where industry innovators come together to drive the future of healthcare. Visit Booth #503 to connect with Jason Gaither and Vincent Balgos for live Jama Connect demos, expert insights, and exclusive swag!
Autodesk University 2024 – San Diego, USA – October 15-17, 2024
Industry: Architecture, Engineering, Construction (AEC)
Jama Software Representatives:Joe Gould, Senior Account Executive, Steven Meadows, Principal Solutions Lead, and Kevin Andrewjeski, General Manager – Growth Markets
Booth Number: 163
About this Event: Autodesk University unites professionals from architecture, engineering, construction, product design, manufacturing, media, and entertainment to forge connections, celebrate innovations, and bring the future of AEC to life.
Congress ELIV 2024 – Bonn, Germany – October 16-17, 2024
Industry: Automotive & Semiconductor
Jama Software Representatives:Matt Mickle, Director – Solutions & Consulting, Stefan Stange, Managing Director – Sales, and Neil Stroud, General Manager – Auto & Semi
Booth Number: 41
About this Event: Join us at ELIV Congress 2024 and discover the future of digital innovation in automotive electronics, software and application industry!
About this Event: We’re sponsoring the TSIA World Envision Expo in Las Vegas, where tech executives and professionals gather to network, connect, and explore solutions. Visit us at Booth #226 and join our Expo Theatre Session on Wednesday, October 23, at 12:15 PM to discover the power of Jama Connect.
Reuters Automotive USA 2024 – Detroit, Michigan, USA – October 21-23, 2024
Industry: Automotive & Semiconductor
Jama Software Representatives:Neil Stroud, General Manager – Auto & Semi and Steve Rush, Principal Solutions Consultant
Booth Number: 18
About this Event: Reuters’ Automotive USA is the automotive industry gathers to hear from trailblazing OEMs, innovative solution providers, and government agencies tackling today’s biggest challenges. Be sure to stop by the Jama Software booth #18 and say hi!
NDIA 27th Annual System and Mission Engineering Conference – Norfolk, Virginia, USA – October 27-31, 2024
Industry: Aerospace & Defense,
Jama Software Representatives:Cary Bryczek, Director – Solutions & Consulting and Rob Wilmot, Senior Account Executive
Booth Number: 4
About this Event: The Annual Systems & Mission Engineering Conference gathers defense professionals from industry, government, and academia to discuss improving defense acquisition and system performance. Jama Software is hosting a workshop on Monday, October 28 at 5:00pm in the Imagination Meeting Room. No prior experience with MBSE or Jama Connect is required. Space is limited. Contact us to learn more!
We’re excited to meet with you and explore how Jama Connect can optimize your complex projects. Don’t miss this chance to connect with our experts, dive into the latest innovations, and gain insights tailored to your specific needs. Be sure to mark your calendar and reach out to schedule a one-on-one conversation at any of these events!
https://www.jamasoftware.com/media/2024/09/2024-9-18-event-promotion-part1-1.jpg512986Jama Software/media/jama-logo-primary.svgJama Software2024-09-18 03:00:142024-09-23 11:00:02Connect with the Jama Software® Team in Person: Our Fall 2024 Event Lineup
The Jama Software® Discovery Center: Learn the Value of Jama Connect® for Complex Development
Welcome to the Jama Software® Discovery Center — a dynamic resource designed to guide you on your journey with Jama Connect®. Whether you’re just beginning to explore modern requirements management or you’re an experienced user looking to optimize your processes, the Discovery Center provides everything you need— right at your fingertips. Learn about Jama Connect and grow your knowledge at your own pace with this comprehensive resource.
Explore the Four Key Areas of the Discovery Center
The Discovery Center is organized into four main areas, each designed to meet you wherever you are on your journey with Jama Connect or simply better understanding how to optimize complex product, systems, and software development.
Here’s an overview of what you can expect:
Discover – Just starting out? Begin your journey in the Discover section, where you’ll find a wealth of resources to help you grasp the fundamentals of modern requirements management. This area is equipped with a comprehensive buyer’s guide, best practices for requirements management (RM), and insights on how centralizing your RM can mitigate risks in product development. Whether you’re evaluating RM tools or seeking to refine your current processes, this is the ideal starting point.
Explore – Curious about how Jama Connect can address your development challenges? The Explore section is for you. Here, you can delve into how Jama Connect® can cater to your specific product, systems, or software development needs. Access curated resources, including customer stories, a complimentary 30-day trial of Jama Connect, and our Get Started video series. This section is designed to facilitate informed decision-making by demonstrating why industry-leading organizations worldwide, choose Jama Connect.
Align & Launch – Ready to implement Jama Connect or better understand what that might look like? The Align & Launch area serves as your go-to resource for successful installation and adoption of Jama Connect within your organization. This section provides key resources to support implementation planning, including FAQs, installation tips, and an in-depth examination of the platform’s features and functionality. It encompasses everything you need to ensure a seamless transition and effective rollout.
Optimize – Already using Jama Connect and seeking to maximize its potential? The Optimize section is tailored for users who want to enhance their environment and ensure long-term success. Here, you’ll find comprehensive information on the REST API, optimization videos, workshops, tutorials, and other tips and tricks to help you fully harness the power of Jama Connect’s robust capabilities.
The Jama Software Discovery Center is more than just a resource collection — it’s a comprehensive guide that empowers you to take control of your knowledge journey with Jama Connect. Whether you’re discovering, exploring, aligning, launching, or optimizing, the Discovery Center is here to support your success every step of the way.
Note: This article was drafted with the aid of AI. Additional content, edits for accuracy, and industry expertise by Decoteau Wilkerson, Kenzie Jonsson, Karrie Sundbom.
https://www.jamasoftware.com/media/2024/09/2024-09-10_discovery-center_024x512-1-1-1.jpg5121024Jama Software/media/jama-logo-primary.svgJama Software2024-09-12 03:00:202024-09-20 14:10:21The Jama Software Discovery Center: Learn the Value of Jama Connect for Complex Development
In this blog, we’ll recap our recent webinar, “Achieving Success in Energy Storage Development: Tips & Best Practices” – Click HERE to watch it in its entirety.
Achieving Success in Energy Storage Development: Tips & Best Practices
Are you prioritizing the safety and success of your energy storage systems (ESS) development?
Teams developing ESS must prioritize product safety and effectively navigate the certification process. By learning best practices and gaining insights into Underwriter Laboratories (UL) standards, they can enhance safety and ensure compliance with industry regulations.
You’ll gain a thorough understanding of these topics and more:
Proven best practices for energy storage system development
Key tips for achieving certification to UL standards
How Jama Connect®‘s pre-defined framework supports successful energy storage systems development and ensures compliance
Don’t miss this opportunity to gain valuable insights and learn how a modern requirements management solution can streamline your energy storage development efforts.
Below is an abbreviated transcript of our webinar.
Steven Meadows: Welcome to today’s webinar on achieving success, as well as energy storage development tips and best practices. So for today’s webinar, we’re going to dive into some essential topics that are going to be very important for successful and safe energy storage system development and successful certification. So our agenda really is going to cover a few areas, including key tips for achieving certification with UL standards and development best practices, Jama Software’s perspective on development challenges, and the effective use of Jama Connect for managing the development of energy storage systems, as well as a sneak peek into our new energy storage development framework.
Now, before we get started, I’d like to briefly introduce myself and my background. My name is Steven Meadows and I’m a principal solutions lead here at Jama Software. With a pretty robust background in requirements management, I bring around about 10 years of experience in implementing software and working with hardware and software teams across a broad spectrum of industries, helping important market game changers really succeed in their development efforts. Now, throughout my career, I’ve had the privilege of working closely with many, many incredibly innovative and life-changing organizations, helping them navigate the intricate landscape of engineering. So Jama Software, my focus has been on empowering teams to achieve their project goals efficiently and with precision. Whether it’s harnessing the full capabilities of Jama connect the platform or strategizing for complex project scenarios and engineering scenarios. My passion really lies in delivering tangible results that drive innovation and enhance operational excellence. Today I’m excited to be joined by Chris Flueckiger who will be talking about energy storage development best practices and certification tips. He’s a bit of a guru in the space. Would you like to introduce yourself, Chris?
Christopher Flueckiger: Sure. Thank you. It’s nice to meet everybody. I’ve spent about the first half of my career working with the design phase of electrical equipment and then the past almost 30 years in the certification of renewable energy systems including battery energy storage systems. So I’ve been working with large companies. I work with all the certifiers currently and represent companies as they look towards certification, all the way from the concept and design of a product through the final certification in marketing and installation. So I look forward to talking with everybody.
Flueckiger: This is going to be interesting. In a half hour, we’re going to try to cover the complexity of certification, but to do so in a way that’ll provide efficient moving from the development of a product to the marketplace. And this is an image of that process when we talk about certification. It starts with a list of documentation, knowledge, and an understanding of what applies to your product. And to go back just one step, it’s understanding what your standards and codes are that are driving that certification of your device. You’ll see the blue text here that represents work that you can do ahead of time to ease the process of certification when you actually present your product to the certifier. And this blue information here is a collection of documentation and evidence, if you will, that your product indeed complies with whatever standards might apply.
When we’re talking about energy storage systems, we’re looking primarily at UL9540 and UL9540A. And the code that drives that is going to be the NFPA 855. And so all these little blue boxes are critical as we prepare for our submission for certification. I will say that not having this information as you enter into certification results in significant time delays, and resource costs as far as samples needed, retesting, redesign, etc. And so what we’re going to do is go through some of these critical points here and discuss how we can make it easier, what we can do to prepare better so that we can be as efficient as possible. Just an example of how efficiency can help you, a typical certification of an energy storage system is going to take about … Well, it could be anywhere from 14 to 16 weeks. We’ve had some certifications that have taken more than a year to complete when they haven’t been prepared properly or they’ve had to be redesigned or test results have come back that have shown a lack of compliance with the UL9540 standard. So it’s critical that we move forward in a smart, organized, and efficient manner.
Talking about the beginning of this whole process is a knowledge of all of your codes and standards that apply to your energy storage system. It’s more than just a marketing scheme. It’s a legal requirement that devices are certified or proven safe to the authorities having jurisdictions or AHJs that approve those installations in one of the many, many, approximately 3000 different jurisdictions across the United States. Those codes are called out by the building codes. From there it calls out specific codes for electrical and fire safety. And those codes are adopted by local jurisdictions giving them some teeth. They’re legislated into effect, which gives them the legal basis as a requirement in order to install an energy storage system within a particular jurisdiction. And that legal basis is important. When we talk about certification, often companies see it as a necessary step, maybe even an obstacle that they have to achieve just to get their product to market, but it has more meaning than that.
It basically establishes a bar of entry for electrical devices that are suitable and acceptable for installation in specific jurisdictions. Now in the United States, we fortunately have the NFPA 70 or National Electrical Code that drives those requirements for safe electrical equipment, and that follows through along with the fire codes. So there is a legal basis for doing this. And yes, it can be time-consuming and it can be costly to go for certification, but it’s a necessary step in order to demonstrate that our products meet the industry standards for a level of safety. We do that basically as a consensus agreement within the industry on the requirements that are established both in the codes and in the standards. So it’s not simply a checkoff, it is an integral part of the safety of our electrical systems in the United States.
Meadows: Have you worked with teams in the past, maybe missed the upfront research around codes and standard requirements, and any examples of some of the impacts of that?
Flueckiger: Oh, absolutely. And oftentimes, as I say, they’re looked at as a necessary evil and bypassed, if you will, during the design phases. And then they come back later with those requirements and try to implement them at the last minute. And that often requires redesign of electrical circuits, repackaging of the product, et cetera. So it can be rather detrimental and costly to wait until the end. Good question.
So when we look at typical requirements that are included in the standards and the codes, we’ll be referencing UL9540 quite often here. They’re broken down into three major categories. We have your general construction requirements, and this is your design, right? These are the components that you’re putting together into a package that provides whatever functionality you are advertising or you’re stating that your energy storage system will provide. For example, you may have an input voltage of 480 volts. You might have an output voltage of 120 volts, whatever the case might be. You may have a certain amount of energy storage and, a number of batteries in your system that operates in a certain way to provide either backup power or to even maybe clean up a microgrid someplace in an industry, for example. But all of those general requirements for ratings rely on construction. Everything from the wire nuts holding two wires together or the connectors, all the way to the batteries and through the whole system with cooling systems potentially, and other systems that make up a part of the whole system that you’re looking to market.
And so those general construction requirements are basically material type requirements, component requirements, and mechanical requirements, and all of them are specified or delineated in UL9540. From the electrical side, we have a little bit more to deal with as well. For example, there are different circuits in battery energy storage systems. We may have an AC connection, we may have a DC set of batteries, we may have an inverter that is making that DC energy usable to the outside world, etc. All of those different circuits within the system have to be isolated from each other so that we don’t have somebody touching an antenna on a communications device and getting 480 volts at that antenna. We want to make sure they’re safe and that they’re separated. And one of the common things that’s missed along the way is that isolation. Spacing is a word that’s commonly used in electrical to define how we develop that isolation using air, for example, as an insulator.
We also might use materials that we talked about in the general construction requirements that have certain dielectric strengths to them so that we don’t have arc over within electrical circuits going from a high voltage, for example, to low voltage. So that’s an important part that has a huge impact on whether or not design is adequate, the design of your circuit boards, your interconnection of devices, etc. Whether or not they’re adequate to meet the requirements of the standards.
And then that follows by those individual components that we’re interconnecting. Whether it’s the batteries, the interconnection to a battery management system or a charging system to an inverter, to a fan, to a cooling system, or an HVAC system depending on the size of your system. But those components that make up the structure have to be relied upon in order to function safely. Not only to function safely but to produce the desired output that’s required of your energy storage system, whether it’s AC or DC, whether your input is AC or DC. All those components work together and are interconnected to produce the output and the functionality of your system.
https://www.jamasoftware.com/media/2024/09/Achieving-Success-in-Energy-Storage-Development-Tips-Best-Practices.png9001600Steven Meadows/media/jama-logo-primary.svgSteven Meadows2024-09-10 03:00:092024-09-26 13:20:02[Webinar Recap] Achieving Success in Energy Storage Development: Tips & Best Practices
Jama Connect Features in Five: Jama Connect Interchange – What Sets Us Apart
Learn how you can supercharge your systems development process! In this blog series, we’re pulling back the curtains to give you a look at a few of the powerful features in Jama Connect… in about five minutes.
In this Features in Five Integration Series video, Mario Maldari, Director of Solutions Architect at Jama Software – will demonstrate the Jama Connect to Jira integration via Jama Connect Interchange™.
VIDEO TRANSCRIPT
Mario Maldari: Hello. My name is Mario Maldari and I’m the Director of solution architecture here at Jama Software. Today we’ll be discussing the Jama Connect to Jira integration via our Jama Connect Interchange. We’ll be focusing on some specific advantages and differentiators that our integration provides for our clients. These advantages provide added value to our integration and allow our clients to better meet the needs of their process and ultimately speed up their development time with improved quality.
Let’s start in Jama Connect’s Live Trace Explorer™ and analyze gaps in coverage between system requirements and user stories. We can easily drill down into the trace view and identify gaps within our coverage. Once the gaps are identified, we can create new user stories to satisfy the coverage and improve our traceability score. Let’s go ahead and do that.
You’ll now see the gap in coverage for this particular item has been satisfied and is no longer being flagged by the tool. One unique aspect of our Jira integration is that a user can configure the synchronization interval. It can range from 15 seconds to up to 24 hours. This built-in flexibility allows for the integration to be customized to meet the needs of many different process flows and organizational needs.
Maldari: Navigating back to the user story that we just created in Jama Connect, you will now see an integration URL has been populated to the corresponding user story that was just created in Jira. In this case, the synchronization was quick, 15 seconds. Any subsequent update made to the item in Jira will synchronize and reflect back in Jama Connect with the same frequency. This way the two tools are always kept in sync and there is essentially no lag time.
Another major differentiation that our integration provides is the ability to create conditional rules for the integration. This allows users to be very specific about conditions for the creation and synchronization. They do not have to worry about the burden and overhead of sinking their entire project. They can be very specific regarding the conditions.
As an example, imagine a process that dictates that a new user story in Jama Connect will only get created in Jira when the Jira status in Jama Connect is set to do. This provides the requirements manager a level of process control where they can review the user stories and determine which ones and when they should be created in Jira.
In the Jama Connect Interchange configuration, if I navigate to the creation rule tab, I can see that there is a rule for user story creation. It’s configured to be triggered when the Jira status is set to do. I can add any number of rules and conditions based on my particular process flow. This allows for customization at a lower level and does not require the entire project to be synchronized.
Now let’s see how this works in Jama Connect. Utilizing Jama Connect’s List View, I can see which stories do not currently have a Jira status field set. I can review these and determine that I would like them to be created and synchronized to my Jira project. I can utilize the bulk edit feature and set the status for multiple items at a time.
Maldari: Because of the conditional rule I have set in my Jama Connect Interchange settings, all three of these user stories will be created in Jira and participate in synchronization. You will see that the Jira URL has now been populated and the corresponding item has been created in Jira. This is just an example, but you can imagine how this flexibility can be applied across your projects and specific to your attributes.
Another important distinction to note is how relationships in Jama Connect and Jira are maintained through the integration. This allows for a more holistic, contextual view of how requirements and user stories relate outside the direct linkage of the integration. For example, as a developer in Jira, I may want to have a reference to how the requirements relate to upstream and downstream links. By choosing a relationship type and performing a field mapping, I’m able to get this reference to display as web links in Jira. As a developer in Jira, this allows me to get a sense for the overall context of the traceability.
In this example, a developer will see a user story come into their queue, and they will have a web link reference to the upstream and downstream requirements in Jama Connect. This provides them with additional context while working on developing the user story. They are even able to navigate directly to those items in Jama Connect for further detail.
One of our core philosophies at Jama Software is making our tools easy to use and therefore easy to adopt and maintain. Our integration to Jira is no exception. The user interface is point and click and the field mapping has intelligence built in that does most of the work for you. It’s also worth noting that we do not require you to be a Jama Connect administrator to set up, configure, and utilize our integration. Jama Connect Interchange also provides detailed event logging, which allows IT teams to monitor events and current status of the configured integrations.
As you can see, the Jama Connect to Jira integration offers teams a robust set of features with configuration options to meet various organizational needs. This flexibility and ease of use combined with specific well-thought-out functionality sets us apart from other requirement tools in Jira integrations. To find out more about our Jama Connect to Jira integration through our Jama Connect Interchange, please reach out to your customer success manager or visit our website today at jamasoftware.com
https://www.jamasoftware.com/media/2024/09/FIF-JCI-New-Integration-series-1.png10801920Mario Maldari/media/jama-logo-primary.svgMario Maldari2024-09-06 03:00:102024-10-04 10:10:24Jama Connect® Features in Five: Jama Connect Interchange™ – What Sets Us Apart
In this blog, we recap a section of our recent eBook, “Buyer’s Guide: Selecting a Requirements Management and Traceability Solution for Oil & Gas” – Click HERE to read the whole thing.
Buyer’s Guide: Selecting a Requirements Management and Traceability Solution for Oil & Gas
Use a Single Platform to Manage the Complexity of Standards Compliance and Product Development
Increasing complexity due to enhanced global and local regulatory scrutiny and rapidly evolving technological advancements causing cost and scheduled overruns is a top challenge for oil & gas companies in two key areas:
Standards & Practices Compliance
Oil and gas companies face numerous challenges in demonstrating compliance with the increasingly complex standards from local, state, and national regulatory agencies, as well as adhering to industry best practices and corporate guidelines. The first reason that problems arise is because these companies often attempt to manage critical processes using Word, Excel, or PDF document-based technology. While this manual approach may be adequate for simple projects, it fails as complexity and scale increase. The second reason is that companies continue to rely on legacy document management software such as SharePoint for tracing, storing, sharing, and retrieving standards documents, despite data siloes, lack of interoperability, constant changes, security threats, and limited collaboration and analysis.
As a result, companies have difficulty:
Reporting compliance to standards
Directly tracing standards to engineering requirements
Managing updates and implementing changes across concurrent projects
Collaborating effectively at a granular level around standards
Creating an audit trail around sign-off and implementation of standardsMitigating error-prone assessment of the impact of making changes to standards
Exploration and Delivery Product Development
Oil & gas companies that develop products such as undersea robots that support exploration and delivery face their own set of challenges. First, the use of document-based technology or siloed point software
solutions fails to keep up with the increasingly complex hardware and software systems and subsystems that must perform flawlessly together. Second, reliance on manual tools that are not optimized for managing a
complex development process often results in inefficient teamwork and late detection of defects. As a result, companies find themselves:
Relying on inefficient meetings or email communications involving internal, partner, and supplier teams to discuss, review, and approve product requirements and tests
Missing opportunities to detect defects and other issues early in the development process when it is typically easier and less costly to ensure product quality and performance
Incurring contractual penalties or losing revenue due to delayed availability or delivery of products
BOTTOM LINE
The increasing complexity and reliance on outdated tools make it difficult for oil & gas companies to efficiently comply with and show compliance to all relevant standards and/or develop products that meet internal or customer needs.
This Buyer’s Guide incorporates insights from Jama Software®’s more than 15 years of experience partnering with forward-thinking development teams and industry experts. We’ve designed a platform that helps oil & gas companies efficiently manage standards compliance and/or product development. This allows them to:
Take advantage of modern digital solutions
Manage standards with more confidence and efficiency
Manage exceptions throughout development to help create better-quality products
Collaborate in a single source of truth with a complete audit trail of activities
Avoid unnecessary costs and delays
Use these insights to better understand the challenges you’re up against and thoughtfully consider potential solutions. Plus, learn how to get the buy-in you need to undertake the kind of transformation necessary to succeed with complex projects.
Making the Case for Change
Jama Connect® helps oil & gas organizations to manage standards compliance and/or product development complexity by replacing documents and legacy tools with a single digital platform that provides a single source of
truth which is easily accessible by all stakeholders at any time. When standards and/or product requirements, architecture, V&V, and safety analyses are managed in a centralized platform, users benefit from a straightforward process and the business impact and value of the platform becomes clear across the organization. That makes getting executive buy-in easier.
If your company is not considering the importance of transitioning to a more modern, streamlined compliance and/or development process, time is not on your side. Failing to act quickly can leave your organization even further behind. But in order to see the value of the positive impact a system can have, stakeholders in an organization have to appreciate the challenges first.
This is where you come in. You can help quantify the problem within your organization and provide data to help make the case for change. Go through the exercises in the next section using data from your organization to identify your current situation and the size of the potential opportunity.
IDENTIFYING THE BUSINESS VALUE
Tools to Assess Compliance and Development Pain Points
Throughout the past decade of working with oil & gas among other organizations managing complex compliance and/or development projects, four common systems development pain points continuously arise for those who
have yet to transform their process.
We’ll provide context around the problems and share equations with examples to help you uncover the savings from a modern standards compliance and development solution. Remember to adjust the variables according to your company’s metrics to get a more precise estimate, and rethink how your team functions.
Improving any one of these four aspects of your process produces real savings. While the calculations on the following pages aren’t cumulative, they impact one another and can add up to significant value for your
organization.
This is the potential of using a modern digital platform. If realized, it can radically change your business and be the competitive edge you need in today’s market.
THE FOUR COMMON COMPLIANCE AND/OR DEVELOPMENT PAIN POINTS
https://www.jamasoftware.com/media/2024/08/2023-08-13-buyers-guide-oil-and-gas-1-1.jpg512986Jama Software/media/jama-logo-primary.svgJama Software2024-08-27 03:00:372024-10-03 09:53:19Buyer’s Guide: Selecting a Requirements Management and Traceability Solution for Oil & Gas
In this blog, we recap a section of our recent Datasheet, “Why Choose Jama Connect Over Codebeamer for Requirements Management” – Click HERE to read the whole thing.
Why Choose Jama Connect Over Codebeamer for Requirements Management
Jama Connect is rated highest above Codebeamer by the market for its Live Traceability™ across best-of-breed ALM and other tools, fastest time-to-value/ROI, industry frameworks and guides, Review Center & collaboration features, and Jama Software’s customer-focused consultative approach and support.
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, safety, and security regulations. Users insist on a requirements management and traceability solution that is easy to use so that all internal and external stakeholders can efficiently access, share and review information in a single source of truth.
Jama Connect stands out above Codebeamer for overall satisfaction, user experience, collaboration, reviews and approvals, implementation, usability, user adoption, and overall ROI. And Jama Connect integrates with market-leading tools for design and simulation, task management, lifecycle management, quality assurance, and testing to improve productivity. With Jama Connect, teams can work in their preferred tools while ensuring all requirements are verified and validated to achieve complete end-to-end traceability.
Teams are choosing Jama Connect over Codebeamer to drive Live Traceability™, enhance collaboration, manage complexity, utilize a best-of-breed ecosystem, time to value, and accelerate speed to market:
Fastest Time-to-Value/ROI
Deploy in weeks, not months, with easy updates and high performance
Pre-configured with data frameworks to satisfy industry regulations and best practices
Multi-tenant cloud and on-prem deployment options
Intuitive user interface and workflows that drive efficiency
Jama Software in-house industry-focused subject matter experts and exceptional customer support
Maximum Communication & Collaboration
Designed for connecting remote / distributed development teams and disciplines
Real-time communication captured in context to improve productivity
Secure access for internal and external stakeholders to provide reviews and approvals for as many collaborators as needed without additional costs
Enables cross-tool collaboration based on traceability
Review Center streamlines review cycles across stakeholders
Highest Adoptability
Intuitive design with a better user experience and ease of use that enables adaptability across teams and disciplines
Lowest learning curve, with minimal training required
Actionable visibility into status, progress, and risks
Role-based permissions-controlled access for your entire organization
Built for the Modern Engineering Stack
Jama Connect is the industry leader for requirements management and traceability activities to support your hardware, software, and systems development
Integrate with market leading tools through Jama Connect’s open REST API
Teams can work in preferred tools with complete traceability through proven integrations with Jira and other best-of-breed ALM task management, test automation & verification, design & simulation, risk management, PLM & PLE, and DevOps, to provide a holistic end-to-end traceability perspective across tool boundaries
https://www.jamasoftware.com/media/2024/08/2023-08-22-why-choose-jama-connec-over-codebeamer-1.jpg512986Jama Software/media/jama-logo-primary.svgJama Software2024-08-22 03:00:532024-10-04 10:12:12Why Choose Jama Connect® Over Codebeamer for Requirements Management
Proactive and Live Traceability™ in Jama Connect® vs. Retroactive and Lagging Traceability in Excel
Incremental increases in product development complexity can lead to an exponential increase in the effort required from Engineering and Research and Development teams to keep up in a document-based (Word/Excel) environment.
PROBLEM
Our medical device & life sciences team has thousands of conversations per year with people interested in product and systems development improvements.
When we look at customer data over the two years prior to adopting Jama Connect, 83% of these organizations had their traceability maintained in an Excel-based matrix.
In this environment, all of the traceability components are maintained in a separate system (in other documents or tools). What we found was that this led to traceability being disconnected from the actual design. And in these cases, this delta was maintained and updated manually.
Updating the Excel-based traceability matrix to reflect changes or new artifacts is always a manual process.
Because this process is not automated, it takes a significant effort and is also highly error-prone. On a small scale, it can be manageable. But once a change is made, managing it effectively in this way becomes a significantly greater problem. We found that these events can exponentially increase both the level of effort needed to maintain traceability and the risk of a negative outcome or occurrence. We’ll provide some examples of this shortly.
As organizations make incremental improvements and changes, or grow and scale the company further, the manual, Excel-based process can become a major bottleneck. Because the level of effort associated with changing this workflow can seem too big of a task to complete, process improvements are de-prioritized. We see an exponential scale difference between an increase in complexity and the difficulty in managing traceability in Excel manually – tightening this bottleneck. Even a slight increase in complexity can lead to a high-severity issue/business impact/time waste.
As an example, let’s take a simpler medical device (a single-use catheter). Here are a few examples of how you could have the traceability schema established:
1-2 levels of requirements traceability (e.g., User Need > Product Requirement > Verification, or User Need > Validation)
Few items per level at each level in the hierarchy (e.g., 5 User Needs, 10 Product Requirements, and 1-2 Verifications/Validations)
As described in the example below, this means for simple products like a single-use catheter, there are roughly 225-440 possible trace relationships:
Let’s now imagine that we want to make a seemingly simple change and additional functionality to the device. We want to connect the catheter to a mobile application, so it can monitor its usage and analyze it for diagnostics purposes.
As this device is now part of a “system” with two major sub-system components, we break down the “product requirements” into two separate levels: “system” and “sub-system” requirements.
The complexity associated with managing requirements and maintaining traceability increases exponentially. For example, we’ve outlined a common example of a Class II system, where you can see that a 4x – 10x increase in the number of User Needs translates to a 15x – 24x increase in the total number of trace relationships that need to be managed.
An increase of 4x-10x in the number of User Needs translates to a 15-24x increase in the total number of trace relationships that need to be managed.
Here are a few common real-world scenarios where we see this complexity change occurring; A couple of examples of other complexity increases for a medical device organization:
A medical device with a newly added component and functionality (software, electrical, mechanical, hardware, etc.)
A research use application (RUO) that is reclassified as an IVD – becoming a diagnostic device
A medical device startup going from an R&D phase into having a product out in the market
A medical device being implemented into a larger system
Expanding into different markets and adhering to new regulations (US FDA, EU MDR, etc.)
Introducing product families, product lines, and variations to more effectively reuse existing components
The more this process/tool improvement is delayed, the higher the risk to the business.
We see this happening to medical device companies both big and small. Here are a few of our customers describing the problem.
“With Word and Excel, if something is changed and a link is broken, that document is gone and it’s literally floating around somewhere in the cloud without linkage to anything. This makes it very scary, especially from a quality or regulatory perspective. Our Word and Excel process evolved with the organization and therefore it was put together layer by layer, making it really hard to have the full depth of knowledge about how the quality system works.” – Rene Wenmekers, Director of Quality & Regulatory, Microsure
“We work in a highly regulated environment, and Microsure’s product has hundreds of requirements on system, subsystem unit, and component levels. And from a regulatory documentation standpoint, information is scattered.” – Robin Brounds, Software Team Lead, Microsure
“When we make changes in medical device development, they need to be reported to the notified body. And when that change hits the level of ‘significant change,’ the whole documentation set needs to be provided to the notified body to be reassessed on safety and efficacy. Every time a requirement changed, it needed to be updated across the whole documentation path. This was not sustainable using Word and Excel, and it was risky.” – Rene Wenmekers, Director of Quality & Regulatory, Microsure
Convergent Dental
While using Word and Excel, Convergent Dental found themselves tracking across multiple documents, all with their own trace matrix tables relating to different requirements. The fallout from this process is that even a single word or letter change in a low-level subsystem requirement led to updating corresponding requirements documents in their trace matrix tables. So, a single letter turns into not one change but potentially six changes across five different documents.
“We have a small team with a large amount of features and updates to perform on an ongoing basis. We all work really hard here, and there’s no option to be dead weight. Getting rid of that wasted time in Word and Excel and getting our test engineers back to work is the ultimate goal.” – Craig Woodmansee, Electrical Systems Engineer, Convergent Dental
NEGATIVE BUSINESS IMPACTS – of not changing
Wasted Time and Inefficient Processes
In a complex setting (working with a complex product, highly regulated environment, high-risk product, cross-functional teams working together, lots of different product variations, target customers/markets, etc.), this can be a person or a team’s full-time effort to keep up to date.
Time is being spent on people trying to find the right and most up-to-date documents
Sitting through review and alignment meetings with all stakeholders
Increased Risk of Negative Outcomes
This process relies on people constantly monitoring and updating each change. If a change goes unnoticed or people forget to update traceability, this gap is difficult to notice. If traceability gaps are noticed later during the product development lifecycle, there is a significant increase in the risk of one of the following negative events happening:
Releasing a faulty & untested product, quality compromise, product callbacks
Forcing organizations into late-stage changes that are costly to implement
Regulatory issues and audit findings (non-conformities, FDA warning letters, etc.)
Product not meeting the original requirements and customer/stakeholder needs
The expected outcome – backfilling documentation and traceability at the very end of the project.
Real outcome – Many issues/gaps went under the radar, leading to project delays, missed deadlines, or regulatory/quality issues:
Decreased Organization Maturity, Disconnected and Siloed Teams
Enforce the defined process – In a document-based environment, it’s close to impossible to monitor and enforce the defined process
Impact on employee tenure – Engineering and R&D are forced into manual documentation instead of actual design & development
Impact on talent acquisition – High-quality talent is more attracted to companies with proper tooling and processes in place
Communication and Transparency – Audit trails and change logs are often lost, hard to keep people accountable for changes
The solution to this problem is having integrated risk management with Live Traceability™ in Jama Connect®. Jama Connect will be the overarching system across all product development initiatives, bringing together all disciplines, making it significantly easier to visualize complex traceability hierarchies, replacing the manual effort needed to keep the documentation up to date, etc.
Jama Connect® brings comprehensive and detailed insights into your complex product, systems, and software development processes – automating the measurement of requirements traceability and coverage across disciplines and your organization’s toolchain.
This level of visibility helps eliminate rework due to out-of-date information; and the biggest fear for engineering leadership – that the greatest risks to a project are unseen until it is too late.
https://www.jamasoftware.com/media/2024/08/2024-8-19-unlocking-success-jama-connect-vs-word-excel.jpg512986Adam Gor/media/jama-logo-primary.svgAdam Gor2024-08-21 03:00:282024-08-19 11:30:47Unlocking Development Success: Jama Connect® vs. Word & Excel for Requirements and Traceability
Leveraging Artificial Intelligence in Requirements Management
Artificial Intelligence (AI) is everywhere – from healthcare, to finance, to customer service – the integration of AI into various business processes has become a game-changer. One area where AI’s impact is particularly profound is in requirements management, a key process in product, systems, and software development.
Effective requirements management is crucial for the success of any project, ensuring that the final deliverables align with stakeholders’ needs and expectations. By leveraging AI, organizations can enhance their requirements management processes, leading to improved project outcomes, increased efficiency, and reduced risks.
Understanding Requirements Management
Requirements management involves the process of gathering, analyzing, documenting, and managing the needs and requirements of stakeholders throughout the project lifecycle. It ensures that all project requirements are clearly defined, tracked, and verified, minimizing the chances of misunderstandings and errors. Traditional requirements management, while effective, can be time-consuming and prone to human error. This is where AI steps in, offering innovative solutions to streamline and enhance the process.
Automated Requirements Elicitation: AI-powered tools can automatically gather requirements from various sources, such as emails, documents, and meeting notes. Natural Language Processing (NLP) algorithms can analyze text data to extract relevant information, saving time and ensuring that no critical requirements are overlooked.
Intelligent Document Analysis: AI can analyze and interpret complex documents, identifying key requirements and relationships between them. This capability allows for more accurate and comprehensive requirements documentation, reducing the risk of misinterpretation and gaps.
Enhanced Traceability and Impact Analysis: AI can improve traceability by automatically linking requirements to their corresponding design elements, test cases, and implementation tasks. In the event of a change in requirements, AI can quickly assess the impact on the project, providing valuable insights for decision-making.
Predictive Analytics and Risk Management: AI can analyze historical project data to identify patterns and predict potential risks and challenges. By leveraging predictive analytics, organizations can proactively address issues before they escalate, ensuring smoother project execution.
Real-time Collaboration and Feedback: AI-powered collaboration tools facilitate real-time communication and feedback among stakeholders, ensuring that everyone is on the same page. These tools can also provide intelligent suggestions and recommendations, enhancing the quality of discussions and decisions.
Continuous Learning and Improvement: AI systems can continuously learn from past projects and refine their algorithms, leading to ongoing improvements in requirements management processes. This continuous learning capability ensures that organizations stay ahead of the curve and adapt to evolving project needs.
Case Study: AI in Action
Consider a software development company implementing AI in their requirements management process. By using an AI-driven tool, the company automated the elicitation of requirements from client emails and documents. The tool identified and categorized requirements, linking them to specific project tasks and design elements. This automation reduced the time spent on manual documentation by 50%, allowing the team to focus on higher-value activities.
Moreover, the AI tool provided real-time impact analysis when changes were requested by the client. It quickly identified affected areas, allowing the team to make informed decisions and adjust project plans accordingly. The result was a more agile and responsive project management process, leading to increased client satisfaction and successful project delivery.
Conclusion
The integration of Artificial Intelligence in requirements management represents a significant advancement in how organizations handle complex projects. By automating routine tasks, enhancing traceability, and providing predictive insights, AI empowers teams to deliver high-quality projects on time and within budget. As AI technology continues to evolve, its impact on requirements management will only grow, offering even more innovative solutions to meet the challenges of tomorrow’s projects.
Organizations that embrace AI in their requirements management processes will not only improve their project outcomes but also gain a competitive edge in an increasingly dynamic and demanding business environment.
Note: This article was drafted with the aid of AI. Additional content, edits for accuracy, and industry expertise by McKenzie Jonsson and Mario Maldari.
Unleash the Full Potential of Your Requirements with Jama Connect Advisor™
Successful product delivery starts with precise, well-written requirements that align design, software, and hardware teams with clear project goals. Jama Connect Advisor™ is a cutting-edge tool powered by natural language processing, guiding system engineers and product developers to create effective requirement specifications based on INCOSE and EARS standards.
Teams are using Jama Connect Advisor to:
Improve the quality and usability of requirements
Save time authoring, reviewing, and updating requirement statements
Continuously enhance team requirement authoring skills with regular use
Deliver programs and projects on time and on budget with long-term success
In this environment, all of the traceability components are maintained in a separate system (in other documents or tools). What we found was that this led to traceability being disconnected from the actual design. And in these cases, this delta was maintained and updated manually.
