Synchronize Tools Across the Software Workflow

Jama Software introduces the integration hub that connects most development tools and teams for faster product delivery.
By John Blyler, Editorial Director
It’s tough to design a complex system when each of the major development groups use different tools and processes. For example, systems engineers use DOORS, software teams use application lifecycle management (ALM) software like Jira or Rally, hardware teams design on CAD and project managers use Excel spreadsheets and PLM programs. As always, the challenge is that the engineers, developers and project-program managers each have their own workflow tools but none of them are integrated together.
Recently, Jama Software addressed the software side of this challenge with the announcement of the Integration Hub – powered by Tasktop. “The integration hub enables the efficiencies gained by tying all of a company’s incumbent legacy systems together to synchronize the overall workflows,” explained Eric Nguyen, Director of Business Intelligence at Jama Software. “The hub is designed to connect developers that work in every stage of the definition and delivery lifecycle. Today, application developers use specialized tools like Rally, JIRA or HP QC for their discrete tasks. However, these tools are disconnected from one another thus making it difficult for each developer to have a shared understanding of what is being built. The new integration hub allows developers to get a flow of information across teams and traceability among artifacts such as requirements, features, use cases and defects.”

The Integration Hub is part of Jama’s new Agile Workflow Design, a service offering to help optimize team collaboration and tailor the product delivery environment to a company’s specific structure. This service evolved from large company requests for best practices in scaling Agile into their existing workflows. Nguyen puts it this way: “The overall software organization in leading companies is often very large. Still, when you break them into the smaller Agile teams – potentially hundreds – it becomes a challenge to coordinate everyone’s efforts around a fast approaching product release date. How can you scale that task? Individually, the teams are great at completing the assigned tasks. But how can the managers make sure that all of these little, small batches of work are integrated together to make for a successful product launch? That’s where our consulting experience over the last seven years can help.”
Additional workflow design services will be announced in the future to address the needs of different businesses and markets. For example, not everyone will want to scale up with Agile. Traditional mission critical markets may need to stay with a Waterfall or hybrid development process. Each workflow design service can be tailored to a specific company’s process and organizational structure.