Product Reviews

CaliberRM 4.1

If you've only worked on small projects, you may not even realize that the "requirements management" tool category exists. If you've worked on large projects, though, you know how important it is to keep track of all the requirements: what needs to be done, who's doing it, how things are going, where the dependencies are, and so on. I've seen this done with whiteboards, Excel worksheets, or tediously-updated Word documents in various shops. If you build a lot of software, though, you'll find a requirements management tool like CaliberRM to be a great addition to your process.

Basically, this product is a multi-user database with a specific purpose. It tracks requirements in a hierarchical tree, and understands that there are dependencies between them. You can enter a bunch of information for each requirement, including who's responsible, what the risks are, what needs to be done, and so on. You can also track discussion for each one, as well as register to be notified when there's a change to particular requirements that you're interested in.

Requirements can be exported to nice Word documents for the boss, as well as some other reports. You can also integrate CaliberRM with other products such as TestDirector, to make sure your testing program checks all your requirements. New features in this version include .NET integration (in addition to the existing COM and Java links) so you can hook other tools in to the requirements and improved support for glossaries, which allow you to define project-specific vocabulary that automatically links to requirement descriptions.

I had one minor annoyance installing the product (it didn't like that I was logged on with a DNS name, thanks to a 15-character login limit), but after I logged off and back in with a Windows user name it was smooth sailing. CaliberRM works well and could quickly trace requirements back and forth, even in a fairly large test project. And the open SDK is a nice touch, too - this is the sort of data that needs to be available, rather than locked up. So if your current requirement management system is feeling strained (or if you spilled coffee on it and ruined it), this is worth a look.

About the Author

Mike Gunderloy, MCSE, MCSD, MCDBA, is a former MCP columnist and the author of numerous development books.

comments powered by Disqus
Most   Popular

Upcoming Training Events

0 AM
Live! 360 Orlando
November 17-22, 2024
TechMentor @ Microsoft HQ
August 11-15, 2025