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How Combining Jama and Jira Improves Your Development Process

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Development teams need the most effective solution to manage product development complexity, but can’t afford to restructure their entire process and workflow.

That’s why integrating leading product development solutions like Jama Connect™ and Jira Software is the best answer. We recently explored some of the benefits of bringing the two solutions together in a recent webinar, “Managing Hardware & Software Product Development Complexity with Jama & Jira,” and wanted to share a few of the advantages with our readers.

The Document Dilemma

In the past, Microsoft Excel or Word may have done a passable job at housing requirements and specifications. However, even those who believe those types of tools were once effective have long since realized that they are no longer practical when it comes to complex product development.

It’s likely you’ve been there — staring at a worksheet with 100+ rows and 10+ columns of data. In an effort to add clarification, you also have a Word doc with a list of specifications. You send the documents via email for your team to read through, and then attempt to comprehend and submit actionable feedback that will impact the outcome of the entire project.

You dread getting the responses back because you know everyone has a different method for submitting feedback and version control will be a nightmare. Even with tools like SharePoint or wikis, collaborating via documents makes it impossible to get timely and actionable feedback from multiple team members in a way that maximizes efficiency.

The Answer: Database Solutions

Database solutions like Jama Connect and Jira Software ease the pain of managing complex product development.

These solutions are purpose-built to help you execute specific pieces of the product development lifecycle, and are known to outperform competitors in those functional areas. Here’s a quick glance at how the two platforms complement each other.

Jama Connect
Answers the questions: What are we going to build? Why are we building it?
Areas of focus: The upstream definition process — making sure you’re doing the right things to successfully build the right product.

Jira Software
Answers the questions: How are we going to build it? When are we going to do it? Who is going to do the work?
Areas of focus: Task tracking and making sure those tasks are being completed.

Integrating Jama and Jira Creates a Juggernaut

Bringing together Jama Connect and Jira Software allows you to work in the solution that best fits your workflow, not the other way around. They are both flexible solutions that adapt to your process — whether that’s Waterfall or Agile or something in between.

They can also be used together in a variety of industries and applications, from semiconductor to medical, from aerospace and defense to automotive, and even IT organizations building strictly software projects.

Jama Connect is used for business objectives and epics (i.e., requirements), as well as status and relationships in the stories phase. It puts all the content in one location so the versioned document dilemma you’ve experienced disappears. Within the system, you can:

  • Collaborate with ease using communication and review capabilities
  • Seamlessly capture and manage decision history and version control
  • Ensure requirements are tied to test cases with coverage analysis upstream and downstream

To complete the loop, Jira Software tracks tasks and progress. It’s the bidirectional synchronization between the two systems that allows you to maintain consistency and alignment throughout the development process.

Defect Management: An Integration Use Case

The integration between Jama Connect and Jira Software is also a powerhouse when it comes to defect management.

In addition to capturing requirements and specifications, Jama Connect also employs test management and houses the tests planned to validate those requirements and specifications.

If tests fail and will create a defect as a result, that information is passed to Jira Software for those defects to managed and fixed.

Furthermore, team members who work in Jama Connect can change the priority of a defect in that system. The information is then available to team members who work in Jira Software. Team members working in Jira Software can continue doing their burn downs and execution, with visibility into where the defect originated and what high-level requirements might be impacted.

By integrating best-in-breed solutions, day-to-day users of each specific software don’t have to bounce back and forth between different tools or change their workflow or process. Yet they can still benefit from sharing the necessary information between both solutions.

A Closer Look

We get many inquiries about Jama’s integrations, and most frequently they involve Jira Software. To hear more about the key benefits of using these two first-class product development solutions, watch our webinar.

Jama Software
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