Slashdot Mirror
Open Source Requirements Management Systems?
scphantm asks: "I have the wonderful (and rare) job of building a development department from scratch. One of the things im doing right now is looking for the software im going to use company wide to manage the department and the various projects we are going to have. I have some great ideas for OSS project management software, but the one piece of the puzzle that im missing is a good requirements management system. I have found a few that will do what i want but i have serious issues spending $1200 to $10,000 a seat! I sat down and put together a wish list for what I would want in a Requirements Management System, is there anything like this out there?" While SourceForge and it's free counterpart Alexandria
may have a few of the pieces to his wishlist, scphantm has some decent ideas that Project Managers might want to think about.
"I have used your basic Word docs and Excel spreadsheets in the past for this but it just simply wasn't up to snuff as far as I'm concerned. How have Slashdotters solved these problems?
My Wishlist
- Has to be web based. We are going to be spread all over the country and i see no other realistic way of doing it.
- Has to handle multiple projects
- I want it set up so I can take the tree of requirements, click on a button and have it take a snapshot of those requirements and mark them as the requirements for version 1. I can then still use the original requirements tree to create the requirements for version 2.0, in the future. I then want the ability to compare the two snapshots and generate a report that I can give to marketing which says: "these are the changes from version 1.0 to 2.0"
- I want the defect tracking integrated into it. Source code management I don't really care about, but bottom line, I want to be able to click on my snapshot of version 2.0 and run a report that itemizes everything in it, from requirements to bug fixes. I want to be able to look at a closed bug and see what release of the product it was integrated into. on this level, I really don't give a rats @$# about what version of data.h the fix was integrated in.
- If I have a bug reported in version 1 of a release, I want it to flag the developers of version 2 that this may be an issue for them as well. Basically have a little bit of AI as far as who needs to know about a bug, and make sure to incorporate the fix for that bug into future releases.
- I want security set up so there is a free communication during the process of requirements management. anyone who is anyone will be permitted to add input to new feature ideas using this system. the Development Director for the particular project would be the only one permitted to make a suggestion a requirement.
- I want an impact tree. I want to be able to run a report to show the CEO that if he wants to change the encryption from Blowfish to AES, its going to impact these requirements."
So I'm reading Slashdot, I click on this story, and I'm confronted with a ad.doubleclick.net advertisement for MICROSOFT .net STUDIO FREE TRIAL?!?? How does this happen, Slashdot?!? I fear the worst...
Moderation totals that amuse me for one of my posts: Flamebait=1, Insightful=2, Funny=2, Overrated=1, Underrated=1
I assume that you also have serious issues getting paid a big salary...
I think you should start by investing in a few more apostrophes.
-
- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
I've just set through and read most of the replies to this thread and have realized the vast majority of them are completely obvlivious to what it is you have asked for. You said requirements management, not configuration management and not project management. You are looking for a tool that will allow you to control your requirements, provide traceability between multiple levels of requirements and your design, provide impacts analysis to the design as requirements change, etc. That's what RM is all about.
Unfortunately, in this respect the open-source movement really is run by a bunch of hacks. Hacks don't like having to write down their requirements ahead of time and think things through, so I don't believe you are going to find what you are looking for (at least not now) in the open-source community. RM is a lot of overhead, but in mission-critical systems it is usually a requirement of your customer.
If this is the situation you find yourself in, I suggest that you bite the bullet and purchase something like Telelogic DOORS or Rational RecPro. As you noted though, the licenses are quite expensive....