Slashdot Mirror
What Software Specification Tools Do You Use?
IronWilliamCash writes "I currently work for a small software development company and for many years we have been using internally built tools for all our software specifications, bugs, change requests and the like. Traceability is a big issue as we are CMMI level 2, and thus our internal processes need to be clear and everything must be documented. We are currently looking into getting a unified solution for this, and after quite a bit of Googling, there are quite a few different options (Contour, Kovair, MKS, Doors, CaliberFM, Accept360, etc.). I was wondering: what do other Slashdotters use in their everyday life? Does it fulfill your needs? And what is the most important part in a specification management tool?"
7" x 5" index cards, a marker pen, and lots of conversations between the people who'll really create the software and the people who'll really use it. Everyone in between can be ignored. All that other stuff you think is important... it's ceremony and job creation. Also, read the end of The Dilbert Principle - if you're one level removed from your company's core business (creating a policy and writing code rather that writing code, talking about customers rather than talking to customers, quality teams, process teams etc etc), then it's not worth doing.
This is not a sig
A dedication to process is a substitute for thinking.
If I didn't work as a QA engineer for a huge ISO-9001 company that absolutely looooves paperwork and red tape, I would print your sentence in huge letters and tack it above my desk at work. This is so true.
The problem with processes is, you need them to interface with customers that require it. Otherwise you miss contracts and opportunities. Unfortunately, QA of the kind I do (and the kind the OP seems to want) is a surefire way of turning a nimble, reactive, cheap small company into a stuffed up, slow, expensive and impossibly non-competitive one.
I hope the OP has a good reason to want more of that shit for his small company, because otherwise he'll be well on his way to hiring a lot of overpaid people who spend their days writing QA documents, norms, purchase specs, acceptance specs, procedures, test reports, waste kajillion reams of paper every day printing all that shit, travel all over the country to attend meetings with others of their ilk to discuss more forms, and generally waste everybody's time and money. I should know, that's what I do for a living...