Work Item Management with IBM Rational ClearQuest and Jazz: A Customization Guide

by David Bellagio, Shmuel Bashan

Overview

The Complete Guide to Managing Work Items and Workflow with IBM® Rational® ClearQuest® and IBM Rational Team Concert™

 

Work items are the lifeblood of software and hardware development. They tell development teams exactly who is doing what, which issues are resolved, which remain unresolved, and which products are impacted. In large, team-based projects, however, managing work items can be difficult. Now, two IBM Rational experts show how to simplify and improve every aspect of work item management with IBM Rational ClearQuest and the powerful and collaborative Jazz™-based products: IBM Rational Team Concert (RTC) and IBM Rational Quality Manager.

 

Drawing on extensive experience with IBM customers, the authors tightly link theory with proven best practices, offering implementation guidance, detailed examples, and complete solutions. They present innovative solutions, introduce advanced customization techniques, and walk step-by-step through every phase of workflow development, from requirements through maintenance. They conclude with a full chapter of sample applications and solutions, ranging from Collaborative Application Lifecycle Management to SLAs.

 

Coverage includes

 

• Understanding work items and their elements
• Using work items for changes, tasks, activities, test plans, test cases, risks, builds, and promotion
• Implementing best practices for work item application planning, analysis, design, development, testing, deployment, and maintenance
• Describing workflows, including advanced dynamic workflows
• Incorporating roles in work items and using them to meet business needs
• Using ClearQuest packages and custom integrations, and making the most of Jazz platform integration technology
• Getting the most of out the CQ-ALM schema
• Implementing effective quality and performance metrics, SLAs, and governance
• Improving test management with IBM Rational Quality Manager work items
• Creating effective workflows for Scrum and other Agile projects

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780138012106
Publisher:	Pearson Education
Publication date:	06/13/2011
Series:	IBM Press
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	400
File size:	14 MB
Note:	This product may take a few minutes to download.

About the Author

Shmuel Bashan is a senior deployment specialist and mentor on IBM Rational Software’s Global Services Account Team. He has served as Rational technical leader, solution architect, and country leader in Israel. An active member of the change management community, he has developed multiple articles, scripts, training materials, and workshops, and contributed to the RUP 8.0 Change Management practice. Shmuel has 13 years of practical experience with Rational tools.

 

David E. Bellagio, worldwide integration engineering architect at IBM Rational Software, develops and deploys integrated Rational solutions to customers worldwide. He is coauthor of Software Configuration Management Strategies and IBM Rational ClearCase: A Practical Introduction, Second Edition (IBM Press, 2005). He has 17 years of experience architecting and deploying successful change-management solutions based on Rational tools.

Table of Contents

Preface xix

Acknowledgments xxvii

About the Authors xxix

 

Chapter 1: Work Items 1

1.1 Work Item Definition 1

1.2 Work Item Classification 4

1.3 Work Item Elements 7

1.4 Customization 13

1.5 Resources 19

1.6 Summary 20

 

Chapter 2: Disciplines: Requirements, Analysis & Design 21

2.1 Requirements 23

2.2 Analysis & Design 29

2.3 Design Patterns 36

2.4 Review and Sign Off Design Models 40

2.5 Resources 40

2.6 Summary 40

 

Chapter 3: The Workflow 43

3.1 Software Development Processes 44

3.2 Process Representation 45

3.3 The States 50

3.4 Dynamic Workflow 56

3.5 ClearQuest ALM Schema Workflow 65

3.6 Jazz Workflow 66

3.7 Subflow 68

3.8 Summary 78

 

Chapter 4: The Data 81

4.1 Work Item Content 83

4.2 State-Based Objects 104

4.3 Stateless Objects 104

4.4 Object Relations 106

4.5 Data Representation 117

4.6 ClearQuest Scripts 120

4.7 Summary 126

 

Chapter 5: Roles 127

5.1 Understanding Typical Problems 128

5.2 Understanding Terms and Concepts 129

5.3 Possible Solutions 132

5.4 Security and Roles 139

5.5 Roles in the ClearQuest ALM Schema 140

5.6 Roles in Jazz 142

5.7 Code Examples 144

5.8 Summary 151

 

Chapter 6: Integrations 153

6.1 Introduction 153

6.2 ClearQuest Integrations 155

6.3 Jazz Products Integrations 177

6.4 Resources 195

6.5 Summary 196

 

Chapter 7: Disciplines, Part 2 197

7.1 Implementation Discipline 197

7.2 Testing Discipline 199

7.3 Deployment Discipline 201

7.4 Maintenance 207

7.5 ClearQuest Tool Mentor 208

7.6 Jazz Tool Mentor 217

7.7 Resources 220

7.8 Summary 220

 

Chapter 8: Development 221

8.1 ClearQuest Schema Development 222

8.2 Parallel Development 240

8.3 Comparing and Merging Schema Versions 245

8.4 Storing Hooks Externally 249

8.5 Releasing a Version to Production 250

8.6 Globally Distributed Development (GDD) Considerations and ClearQuest MultiSite (CQMS) 253

8.7 ClearQuest Script Debugging 255

8.8 Other Development Considerations 260

8.9 Web Considerations 274

8.10 Preparing for the Future 277

8.11 Resources 277

8.12 Summary 278

 

Chapter 9: Metrics and Governance 279

9.1 Metrics 279

9.2 Governance 287

9.3 Resources 301

9.4 Summary 305

 

Chapter 10: Test Management and Work Items 307

10.1 What Is Rational Quality Manager? 307

10.2 Understanding Test Entities and Work Items 307

10.3 Work Items in the Test Process 310

10.4 Customization 316

10.5 Summary 324

 

Chapter 11: Managing Agile Projects 325

11.1 Defining Agile Development 325

11.2 Agile and Scrum in a Nutshell 326

11.3 Realization with Rational Team Concert 330

11.4 Realization with ClearQuest 337

11.5 Agile with the ALM Schema 346

11.6 Resources 350

11.7 Summary 351

 

Chapter 12: Sample Applications and Solutions 353

12.1 Collaborative ALM with Jazz-Based Tools 353

12.2 User-Defined Fields in ClearQuest 356

12.3 Service Level Agreements (SLAs) in ClearQuest 363

12.4 ClearCase, ClearQuest ALM, Build Forge Integrated Solution Architecture 367

12.5 Manage Release Promotion 374

12.6 Resources 382

12.7 Summary 384

 

Index 387

Editorial Reviews

"Dave and Shmuel have mastered both CQ ALM and Jazz and produced a primer introducing these to the IBM Rational Tools audience. This is a great starting point for implementing the integration."

--Robert W. Myers, CQ ALM Architect, IBM Rational

"This book is an excellent introduction to how to think about workflows, a topic that has been severely lacking in discussions of implementing tools that govern workflows. Without this understanding of workflows, good tools are often poorly implemented and therefore don't yield the ROI expected. Although this book uses Rational tools to describe implementation fine points, the information presented will be very useful for doing the groundwork for implementing any workflow-supporting tools."

--Chuck Walrad, Managing Director, Davenport Consulting

"Dave Bellagio and Shmuel Bashan provide thorough and practical coverage of how to implement a work item change management process using IBM ClearQuest or the Jazz Platform. A must-read for professionals involved in implementing a change management process with IBM ClearQuest or with one of the Jazz-based products."

--Celso Gonzalez, Coauthor of Patterns-Based Engineering: Successfully Delivering Solutions via Patterns

"Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) is the key to success for today's increasingly complex enterprise software delivery challenges. At the heart of ALM is work item management. This book provides an excellent review of practical approaches to work item management based on real world experience that will help you to deliver enterprise solutions more effectively. It is a great resource for the whole software delivery team."

--Alan W. Brown, IBM Distinguished Engineer

From the Publisher