{"id":19651,"date":"2015-09-09T11:19:21","date_gmt":"2015-09-09T18:19:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.jamasoftware.com\/?p=19651"},"modified":"2023-01-12T16:55:48","modified_gmt":"2023-01-13T00:55:48","slug":"managing-competing-requirements-in-jama","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.jamasoftware.com\/legacy\/blog\/2015\/09\/09\/managing-competing-requirements-in-jama\/","title":{"rendered":"Managing Competing Requirements in Jama"},"content":{"rendered":"

As a System Engineer managing requirements do you ever feel like you\u2019re playing a game of Topple? First, you start with a board that is relatively balanced, but depending on where you put the pieces it can quickly get off kilter. As the game evolves you are adding more and more pieces to the board. Now let\u2019s make the game harder. Some of those pieces weigh more than others, so putting one green piece on the board means adding two red pieces to balance the load. Just for fun, lets now tie a few of those pieces together with some string, meaning you can\u2019t add one or move one piece with out moving another. And are you really playing this game all by yourself?<\/p>\n

\"Managing<\/a>

Managing requirements can feel like a game of Topple.<\/p><\/div>\n

Finding balance between competing requirements can seem\u00a0just this precarious. If you\u2019re building a medical device, you are likely weighing human safety over product aesthetics. When you add cost to one area of the product you have to adjust another area to keep cost in balance. And likely you\u2019re working with a team of engineers who are building this product and must stay in close communication with them in order to deliver a complete, quality system. And as your product evolves you\u2019re receiving requirements from many sources: business, product, hardware, and software.<\/p>\n

How do you manage all of these competing priorities, conduct effective impact analysis and keep all stakeholders and developers in alignment? You are likely using some sort of complex matrix to keep track of the individual requirements and their relationships. It could be in Excel or even in a legacy RM tool. And this may work if all requirements were created equal, or if you\u2019re the only person who needs to know about the impacts to the complete system.<\/p>\n

But likely, that spreadsheet is not working.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s what that spreadsheet on your desktop cannot do:<\/p>\n