[IxDA Discuss] A tool for managing use cases / requirements

[Gordon, Richard E.]

I saw a demo recently that showed how requirements could be linked to UI
prototypes in iRise (http://www.irise.com/ ) and it supposedly
integrates with Rational. That is a very cool but very expensive
solution. Someday maybe...

The Rational products are pretty good at what they do, but there is a
lot of "big project" overhead with the cost and configuration issues. On
one of my larger projects we use ReqPro, ClearCase and ClearQuest and
have had some success with linking and integrating although I have to
admit we don't use those features as much as we should. Having a
dedicated QA test team keeps us honest as they have to translate from
use case to requirement to test case. One advantage to using the
Rational Suite is that it sorta kinda "forces" you to follow a RUP-like
SDLC process if you are really using the product suite as designed. That
is obviously not going to be the best solution for every project. Using
any one of the products alone doesn't really buy you much and you really
need a dedicated "Rational Guru" to configure and maintain it.

I have used "Enterprise Architect" (http://www.sparxsystems.com.au/ ) in
the past and it did have some linkage between use cases and
requirements, although I don't remember the management aspect being all
that great. It has been a while so it might be a decent option.

I came across this "storyboard-based" application the other day from
STPSoft (http://www.stpsoft.co.uk/stpbadeveloper3.html ). I haven't
tried it yet, but it looks interesting and the price is much better.
Might be worth a look.

Rick Gordon
UI Technical Analyst, SAIC