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At the IBM Innovate 2011 conference at the beginning of June, IBM announced  enhanced solutions for Collaborative Lifecycle Management, including a new version of IBM Rational Requirements Composer. If you couldn’t attend the event or haven’t seen any of the news on this yet, here’s a blog post on jazz.net, with details of the new capabilities for requirements management and integration into the lifecycle, written by the product manager, Jared Pulham, just a few days before the software became available in mid-June.

On Day 3 at IBM Innovate 2011 we were wowed by Watson. For those of you who know the Requirements product management team at IBM Rational, that’s not Richard Watson (DOORS product manager – although he’s amazing – $100 cheque in the post please Richard!) but the recent supercomputing Jeopardy winner. We had a great insight into the way Watson works and its incredible potential for analytic reasoning in more life changing applications (although I’d still love to have access for the next pub quiz!). And Grady Booch dug deeper into the software architecture that leverages the power of the hardware for ’embarrassingly massive parallelism’.

In the Requirements Definition & Management track, a couple of key highlights were : hearing about the success Royal Bank of Canada have had in building a Requirements Center of Excellence supported by Rational Requirements Composer; and learning from Goran Begic of Mathworks about traceability and impact analysis of requirements in Rational DOORS to model elements in Mathworks Simulink.

In the evening it was party time in Universal Studios CityWalk and the Wizarding World of Harry Potter.

From the exciting possibilities for Watson, the expertise in requirements definition and traceability, to the fantasy world of Hogwarts, it was a day of wizards.

Hello again from IBM Innovate 2011 in sunny and warm Orlando. Well I guess it’s sunny and warm – I’m at a busy conference and haven’t seen much daylight since Saturday, and it’s cold in these conference rooms!

Day 2 (yesterday) continued the drumbeat around collaborative solutions with a cross platform, cross lifecycle demo of IBM’s Collaborative Lifecycle Management and Collaborative Design Management solutions.

In a packed systems engineering keynote we saw how integrated lifecycle solutions are evolving to incorporate electronic design with systems and software engineering; and in the requirements track we heard more on that from Mark Carey at Mentor Graphics – specifically about how to extend requirements traceability into hardware design.

A lively discussion was provoked by a session on Comparing and Contrasting Requirements and Work Items. Look out for more of a discussion on this here but since this is a requirements blog I agree wholeheartedly with the proposition that you cannot treat a requirement as a type of work item.

It’s been another packed day today – so much more I’d like to share but I’m now it’s to finally get outside. We’re off to the Wizarding World of Harry Potter. Bring on the butterbeer! More tomorrow when I’ll recap Day 3.

Hello from IBM Innovate 2011 in Orlando, Florida. Day 1 yesterday was packed full of announcements, client success stories, technical best practices, a very busy solution center , great opportunities for networking, and flashmob dancers!

The overall theme is ‘Software. Everyware.’ Software pervades business processes and products we rely on in our work and private lives. Key messages on how IBM Rational is helping organizations drive innovation through software were ‘Integrate, Collaborative, Optimize’. Linking information across the software and systems lifecycles breaks down silos and enables more efficient and productive collaboration. That collaboration together with ‘development intelligence’ – up to date measurement data on your project status and trends, enables optimized decision making.

Key announcements were made on Collaborative Design Management, Collaborative Lifecycle Management, and Collaborative Development & Operations all emphasized integration using OSLC (Open Services for Lifecycle Integration) – see open-services.net.

From the Requirements Definition & Management (RDM) track, highlights included the announcement of Rational Requirements Composer 3.0.1 with it’s completely web based implementation, improved definition capabilities, new management – filtering and traceabiity capabilities, enhanced lifecycle integration with Rational Team Concert and Rational Quality Manager, and built-in planning and work item management features.

The RDM Strategy & Vision session also previewed the intended evolution of IBM Rational DOORS onto the Rational Jazz server while continuing to enhance the current DOORS generation; and enabling interoperability between the two to enable organizations and supply chains to transition at their own pace.

Want to know about Day 2 and onwards as it happens? Follow @rationalrdm or the #ibminnovate hashtag on Twitter.

And I’ll be back with a day 2 recap tomorrow.

Andy Gurd, Go to Market Manager, IBM Rational, from IBM Innovate 2011.

For IBM Rational staff and clients it’s that time of year when we’re either already in, enroute or packing to travel to Orlando, Florida for our annual conference. I’m flying from the UK tomorrow and I’m really looking forward to IBM Innovate 2011. With over 400 sessions, and over 300o attendees, it’s going to be a very busy and interesting week. With so much going on, I wanted to take the chance to share my top 5 of ‘things I’m most looking forward to at IBM Innovate 2011’.

At number 5 this year (although my colleagues may think I really put this higher), it’s singing karaoke. For the past couple of years, we’ve had karaoke with a live band at the Sunday night welcome reception and since I love to sing this was an unmissable opportunity and great fun. My colleagues also dragged me (yeah I can hear them sniggering) into the Kimonos lounge in the Swan hotel to sing for them.  No doubt if you’re lucky (!) enough to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, I’ll be exercising my vocal chords again this year!

At number 4 (getting to the serious stuff), it has to be the main stage keynote presentations. Actually before we get to the really serious stuff with those, I have to mention I’m really intrigued to see Felicia Day, who is our guest host for the event. I’m not that familiar with her, but her intro video for the conference was really amusing and I’ve heard so many good things from people who know more about her. I’m looking forward to hearing the latest on strategy and announcements of new and enhanced solutions from IBM leaders,  the featured customer case studies, and the ask the experts panel featuring IBM Fellows and Distinguished Engineers. And after it’s world famous Jeopardy win, I’m really excited to see Watson in action and to understand more about how it was developed.

At number 3, it’s sharing the Requirements Definition & Management (RDM) strategy and vision, and latest and greatest news in our RDM portfolio. On Monday we’ll hear from Jared Pulham on the ‘New IBM Rational Requirements Composer’ ; from Bill Shaw, RDM Leader and George DeCandio, Distinguished Engineer on the latest trends and IBM’s strategy for requirements definition & management; and from Richard Watson and a team of experts on the latest on integrating IBM Rational DOORS into the systems and software engineering lifecycles.

At number 2, it’s hearing the presentations from clients – the stories and experiences from the ‘trenches’ – those out there performing requirements definition & management every day. Whether it’s Royal Bank of Canada or Nationwide Insurance talking about experiences with Rational Requirements Composer;  General Dynamics Land Systems on how Rational Publishing Engine has improved document generation from Rational DOORS;  Constellation Engineering on requirements metrics on the new lunar module project;  or Cricket Communications and St Jude Medical on requirements reuse, there’s lot of great content that will be shared.

And finally, at number 1, it has to be the networking. It’s so great to be able to speak with so many clients – I always find it a very motivating experience. And it’s also great to catch up with colleagues and old friends from around the globe that I haven’t seen for a while. I really hope that if you’re coming, that we at least get a chance to say hello. As co-chair of the RDM track you’ll mostly find me in either of the two track rooms – Northern Hemisphere A1/A2 or A3/A4.

If you’re not able to make it to Orlando, you will be able to follow the keynote sessions through LiveStream and there will be many blog posts (I’ll do my best to keep you updated here) , video blogs, and tweets during the event. You can keep up with the latest happenings before and during IBM Innovate 2011 with our social media aggregator: http://ibm.co/rationalsocial.

Right, i’m off to start packing…oh and to gargle some lemon and honey…got to keep those vocal chords supple!

Andy Gurd, Go to Market Manager, IBM Rational

Version 3.5 of the Rational DOORS for HP Quality Center Interface greatly increases performance and scalability for large synchronizations between the tools and large numbers of smaller ones. The Administration UI now provides more control, and attribute maps simplify multiple synchronization tasks. Read more in a developerWorks article:  ‘New features in the Rational DOORS for HP Quality Center Interface’.

“No man is an island” wrote John Donne. I googled the proverb to see what is said about its meaning. The first definition that came up was ‘Human beings do not thrive when isolated from others’ (from: http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/no-man-is-an-island.html).  I think this sums up why striving for more and improved ways of collaborating is key to success for many human endeavours, particulary as we tackle increasingly complex challenges.

In software and systems engineering (to create software applications that drive business innovation or smarter products that help to improve quality and efficiency in our working and private lives), there is an ongoing need to seek ways to break down barriers between the various lifecycle disciplines and roles to provide more efficient workflows.  At the forthcoming Innovate 2011 conference (Orlando, Florida, June 5-9), collaboration and integration will be among the central themes, and one of the key announcements will be about Collaborative Lifecycle Management – new and enhanced capabilities for Application Lifecycle Management (ALM).

One of the key elements to the Collaborative Lifecycle Management solution are capabilities for requirements definition & management in the form of Rational Requirements Composer, and Innovate will be the place to be to get the latest IBM news on Rational Requirements Composer as well as hearing about best practices for, and experiences with Rational Requirements Composer from both IBM and customers. Some highlights of what you can expect to see:

• Jared Pulham, product manager, IBM, will present ‘The New IBM Rational Requirements Composer’. In this session, Jared will  provide an overview of what is new in IBM Rational Requirements Composer and explain the vision of requirements capability for application lifecycle management (ALM).
• Hari Narayanaswamy, Nationwide and Lee Reid, IBM will present ‘Extended Requirements Lifecycle Management’. This session will describe an approach to extending requirements management to the full lifecycle – from the inception of a business need through the ongoing updates and maintenance  of IT applications that will exist for years. Attendees will learn how this technique is being adopted at Nationwide Insurance in pilot projects, hear about the initial results, and see how automation is taking place with IBM Rational Requirements Composer.
• Kirk Grotjohn, IBM will present ‘Using IBM Rational Requirements Composer Sketching Tools to Visually Communicate and Elaborate Requirements’.  A member of the IBM Rational Requirements Composer design team will show how the sketching tools were used to design key features of Requirements Composer and illustrate the advantages of ‘visual communication.’
• Valerio Rosati, IBM,Vivienne Suen, IBM, and Ian Kerins, Royal Bank of Canada will present ‘Case Study: Royal Bank of Canada Uses IBM Rational Solutions as New Standard for Requirements Definition and Management’.  This session will outline how Royal Bank of Canada uses IBM Rational Requirements Composer, IBM Rational RequisitePro, and IBM Rational Publishing Engine  as the standard toolset to support its improved requirements discipline within its enterprise project management framework.

Come to Innovate 2011 and learn more about Collaborative Lifecycle Management, requirements definition & management and Rational Requirements Composer among many other topics relevant to the software and systems engineering community.

Well talking of islands, it’s time for me to link up outside of mine (I’m in the UK) and join my colleagues across the world on a conference call.

I hope you can make it to Innovate 2011 – I’d love to meet you there.

Andy Gurd, Go-to-Market Manager, IBM Rational

Just announced:  Wind River Test Management now has a Ready for Rational certified integration with IBM Rational DOORS to provide traceability between requirements and tests. Wind River will be presenting and exhibiting at Innovate 2011 (Orlando, Florida June 5-9) and you’ll be able to see a demo of the new integration there.

When choosing an automotive vehicle wouldn’t it be boring and inconvenient if only one make and model were available? We are lucky today to have a plethora of  choices  to meet differing needs. If you’re a single person or young couple, perhaps you look for a sporty convertible; a family with their first child goes for a compact saloon; and a larger family chooses an MPV. Perhaps you also need different vehicles for different jobs – if you carry heavy loads sometimes, you get a pick-up truck.

At IBM Rational we think the same need, to be able to pick the right tool for the particular job, applies to requirements definition & management (RDM). That’s why we continue to maintain more than one product in our RDM portfolio. Daniel Moul explains, in a recent forum post on jazz.net, the different project and organizational needs addressed by Rational Requirements Composer and Rational DOORS.

At the forthcoming Innovate 2011 conference (Orlando, Florida, June 5-9) there will be plenty of opportunities to learn more about requirements management tools and techniques to address types of organization, project and process. I’d like to highlight a couple of sessions here:

• RDM-1978:  Requirements Engineering: Which Techniques and Tools Are Right? which will be presented by Timothy McKemy, and Harry Koehnemann of Rocket Gang. They will talk  about a number of requirements techniques and discuss when to use each based on factors such as system complexity, level of governance, and development process.

• RDM-2203:  Track Kickoff: Requirements Definition and Management Strategy and Vision, presented by George DeCandio, Distinguished Engineer and Bill Shaw, Manager, Requirements Management at IBM. This session, which last year was the most popular breakout session at the conference, will cover IBM’s view of patterns and trends in requirements definition & management; and IBM’s strategy and vision to address them in the Rational requirements definition & management portfolio.

To find out more about the Requirements Definition & Management track and to register for Innovate 2011, please visit the conference website. To keep up with the latest developments in requirements management at IBM, please visit jazz.net and the requirements management section on ibm.com.

Right for now I’m going back to day dreaming about my next car,

Andy Gurd, Go to Market Manager, IBM Rational