Even if developers are working in the same room together, certain communications can fall through the cracks.  Requirements and other events in the software development lifecycle need to be documented and received by the right people.  Eric Winquist, the CEO of Jama Software, recently told DZone about his vision for how requirements management should function. 

This led to the creation of Contour, a web-based requirements management platform that centralizes communication for development teams and other business stakeholders.  It allows users to initiate, discuss, change and track requirements during development.  Today, he says that Jama has released the latest and greatest version of this agility-inducing software - Contour 3.0.  Rather than describing how it works, these videos should show you how Contour is used and the good development frameworks, methodologies, and practices that are generated as a result of using it.

New Features in Contour 3.0

System Hierarchy: Allows Teams to create a structure that accurately represents all of the specifications associated with highly complex and requirements-rich projects. Through a system of components, sets and items, Contour provides the ability to separate and modularize requirements to eliminate redundant work.  The hierarchy organization will keep teams focused and give them the visibility to track and manage an extremely high volume of dependent and inter-dependent system requirements.



Review Center: The Review Center is a new module that provides teams a fast and agile way to review requirements to gain consensus among a variety of stakeholders. It provides a socialized hub to manage and speed up the entire requirements review and approval process. Team members can initiate requirement reviews, gather feedback, monitor social interactions, and manage an approval process that updates Contour and notifies all team members that requirements are ready for development. Review Center promotes 'socialized' team interactions through IM-like real-time discussions and forum-posting-style comments, edits, issue flagging, and feature voting/prioritization.  The approval process is completed through electronic sign-offs for an official record of the agreed-upon scope. For corporate compliance and governance, it tracks time invested and keeps a detailed audit trail of approvals and changes to requirements.


Flexible licensing options are available and pricing starts at $700 per named user per year, which is less than $59 per month.  More information can be found at www.jamasoftware.com.