The challenges for product management consist of documenting, analyzing, tracking, prioritizing, and agreeing on requirements. Controlling all changes and communicating between team members and other stakeholders is an important part of the process.
As the first component of software development, the collection of requirements strongly influences all subsequent phases. For this reason, the well-organized management of this phase is very important and should not be neglected.
Unfortunately, this does not always work. During project development, requirements are often collected in external files such as Excel spreadsheets or separate tools. To track the progress of all your activities and maintain a continuous process, it is beneficial to collect all files together in one place.
Requirements Management Affects The Entire Project
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The requirements define which functions or capabilities the end product must-have. This makes it possible to plan the next development steps and to divide the roles and responsibilities. Many companies underestimate this process without realizing that it can lead to one of the main reasons for possible end product failure.
If the requirements are not organized and structured from the start, this can lead to project delays, misunderstandings between team members, and ultimately to loss of time and money. Suppose possible inaccuracies are discovered earlier in the project. In that case, they can be corrected immediately or even removed from the overall plan so that the team does not have to waste energy on unnecessary tasks.
The following graphic shows an example of an effective approach to requirements management. This kind of in-depth analysis before implementation minimizes the risk of duplication or the need to downgrade.
Bring Your Requirements Into Jira
Why should you choose Atlassian products for your requirements management? The specific answer depends on your specific goals, but Jira as a testing tool usually meets the expectations of even the most demanding team members. Jira was originally developed to monitor and manage projects.
It now enables software developers to control the process from start to finish and achieve the end products’ goals. Users can individualize the software to accelerate the process and adapt it optimally to their needs thanks to individual settings.
With the help of Jira, it is possible to collect the requirements in a single tool and to link them with one another. This enables you to test and execute the entire software development in a uniform interface. Everyone involved has easy access to the data and can monitor implemented changes: developers, testers, and other key stakeholders can see every step.
There are a variety of project types and structures, each of which requires an individual solution. Thanks to various options for documenting product requirements in Jira, your team members can choose which model is best for them. We differentiate between three basic ways of entering requirements in Jira.
Requirements As Problem Types
This is the easiest way to manage your requirements in the Atlassian Suite. If you already use Jira for your project management, saving objects as a problem type is easy to implement. A smart way to plan the workflow is to design the software development project based on requirements that have been previously established. With this solution, you can define further steps and assign specific roles and permissions to the stakeholders.
Since Jira administrators have the authority to create customized Jira problem types, all you have to do is set up problems specifically tailored to the requirements and then name each task with the correct names and components. Specific problem descriptions make filtering and searching for specific requirements much easier and faster.
Storing elements in Jira helps make elementary connections between related requirements. If requirements are directly dependent, we can build a functional structure by linking corresponding tasks and sub-tasks.
Integration With Confluence
In addition to Jira, Confluence is also an Atlassian product. This tool allows us to develop the requirements structure integrated into Jira and bring it to a higher level.
Development problems and tasks can be created directly from the requirement pages, ensuring seamless integration between the associated objects. The main purpose of Confluence is to optimize the work of the documentation.
Confluence can store and present much more detailed information than Jira. It provides its users with a template to make the description of the requirements on the wiki platform easier and faster. If you choose Confluence as your requirements management tool, your team has several options:
- You can create the entire requirements structure in Jira and write the details of the requirements on the appropriate pages.
- Instead of separating your requirements, you can put the entire specification in one Confluence document.
- The third option is to create the tree structure of the sub-pages in Confluence and connect them to the project with the requirements collected in Jira to track the progress.
Saving requirements in this area is more intuitive and efficient than collecting them in external tools or Excel spreadsheets. All requirements management-related activities in two such high-level interconnected environments stimulate discussion and improve communication between those involved. Also build your business brand identity with proper marketing strategies using Doting Word Solutions.
Own Apps From The Atlassian Marketplace
The Atlassian suite includes tools for requirements management. Requirements and Test Management for Jira (RTM) should be highlighted, as it allows not only requirements but also test cases to be structured to complete the software projects normally available in Jira. This feature sets our brand new app apart from other test apps available on the market.
RTM enables Not only does it fully integrate with Jira, but it also offers its users a seamless link between requirements, epics, and user stories, as well as the problems associated with testing. In addition, requirements can be organized in a tree structure with folders and subfolders so that the elements are visible to everyone involved.
Thanks to this flexibility, teams can reflect the structure that can be created in Confluence if necessary. In addition, one of the main advantages of RTM is full traceability. The tool gives us easy, intuitive access to the view of the relationships between the objects.
There are also built-in reports such as Traceability Matrix or Requirement Coverage That help ensure that all requirements are covered and that no detail is overlooked.
Summary
Saving requirements in Jira Software can greatly improve your projects. It’s no secret that running all software development in one tool speeds up the process and makes it much clearer for everyone involved. Anyone can stay on top of things and track the changes every step of the way.
If you choose a special requirements and test management tool for Jira, your options become even more diverse. Testing apps offer you reports on the fulfillment of needs and many other functions that support an efficient, well-organized workflow and prevent possible errors in the end product.