IBM DOORS Next Reviews

I am using IBM DOORS Next in our system engineering processes by defining requirements according to the software development process, then switching to the next state design, and then testing. At the end, we perform the requirement coverage, and those were requirement management tools in the process.

The usability of IBM DOORS Next is very good, and the features are very good. We were able to define well-structured requirements with links, and it was similar to using a Word document. What I found very good was that we could define several groups of requirements, and we were able to see the several groups. That is a feature that I miss in some tools that we are currently using in the context of Agile.

The traceability feature in IBM DOORS Next is very good to use during the coverage analysis.

I use IBM Rational DOORS Next Generation as a requirement management tool for software development.

IBM Rational DOORS Next Generation helps reduce missed requirements, especially since we have started using it as a requirement management tool. Multiple teams within an organization can work together on the same tool and follow standard or best practices to test the benefits and results they experience from reduced defects and more standard, on-time delivery of work.

The way system engineering typically works is that your use cases are developed in what we call an MBSE, which is a model-based system engineering tool. Let's say your MBSE tool is MagicDraw. First, you would get and develop a system spec from your customer requirement specifications. Then your requirements engineers would further derive the system spec and set it up in your DOORS environment. Then your architects would start architecting and modeling from that system spec and develop use cases and logic flow diagrams. Then, as those use cases mature, they turn into performance requirements or constraints to help establish your sequence diagrams. The use cases aren't managed in DOORS, they're managed in an MBSE tool, but like I said, the use cases derive requirements that get put into DOORS.

The biggest thing is that it shows cradle to grave traceability between the initial parent requirement and the lowest level, or what we call a CID, a critical item development spec. You can establish your verification plans in DOORS, and then as you get test results, you can put them in DOORS as a link or as a pointer to where that specific test resides on a company database. Then you can also write compliance rationale and add a column for coding, like pass, fail, green, yellow, red, meets, does not meet, partially meets, or whatever scoring criteria you want to use. Like I said, the best thing about it is that it provides you that visibility of your verification, allowing you to know how close you are to your pre-production activities, prototyping, go ahead, or whatever it is.

We use DOORS, which is a module of Rational. I've only used the DOORS product. 

I've never used the Rational Robot. I know what it does, yet I haven't used it personally.

We really use it for maintaining our requirements documents. We use it for maintaining and updating all of our requirements docs that Rational uses today. There are probably other capabilities that it does. I'm just not familiar with them. Mainly we use it for managing requirements documents so that when they do have testing, they can use those to test against.

The ability to make updates to requirements is probably a nice feature to have. It still takes some training to do. If I'm away from it for a while, since we'll do maybe one update or whatnot, or I may review them once in a while, I'll have to re-remember things. Sometimes it can be a little cumbersome since I don't use it frequently, and I have to retrain myself.

As far as maintaining our requirements so that we can have copies of them, it's good. I can print it out if necessary.

We have another person here, an engineer here, that's kind of the manager of the whole Rational tool. She probably has more experience than I do. I just use it just to be able to reference back to those documents so whenever we have updates, we can go back to those docs.

The solution is stable. 

The product can handle quite sizable documents.

It offers an improved search experience. 

IBM Rational DOORS Next Generation is the master for capturing requirements. The solution does have other use cases, however, most of our customers are using DOORS as a requirement capturing software. High-level requirements or stakeholder requirements are captured mainly in DOORS.

There are many good features with DOORS. The solution has a concept of streams and baselines, as well as a concept of components. A component is a subproject inside a project.

IBM Rational DOORS Next Generation has the capability to extend or add extensions to the data model.

Another valuable feature would be the ease to add custom attributes and new objects with DOORS.

I use the tool as a PLM solution. We use it for linking requirements, flexibility between requirements and test cases, third-party models, and software architecture. We link everything together—the evolution of requirements alongside test cases and generation. We use it for everything in our projects.

The solution offers good control and configuration management with global and local configurations. This allows for collaborative work and delivery of changes to different streams or configurations.

The tool's most valuable feature is displaying requirements in a tabular format. This means you can see everything laid out in columns and rows. It is more aesthetic compared to other tools. The traceability matrix helps to view things better. It comes with different linking rules. 

IBM Rational DOORS Next Generation is a web-based tool, based on relational databases such as BP2 or MSS cloud, so it's a different approach to work with it, to work over the web. We have all functionality over the web. There's no decline for it, so it's a completely remote working tool.

We have the data on the server with a sizable use case. Now at 47 under two, it is getting better.

IBM Rational DOORS Next Generation is easier to expand to build a backend with several servers, so you can also use it to scale up to several hundreds of users without major problems.