From AI to Roadmaps: Your Guide to Jama Software’s Upcoming Community Events
Are you ready to connect, learn, and grow with a community of like-minded professionals?
Jama Software Community Events are here to empower our customers with insights, strategies, and tools to maximize your success with Jama Connect®.
Whether you’re tackling challenges in requirements traceability, regulatory compliance, or product and systems development, these events are your gateway to meaningful conversations and actionable solutions.
Please note: These events are for existing customers only. If you are not currently a customer and would like to start a free 30-day trial, click here!
Here’s a sneak peek at the exciting lineup of upcoming events:
1. Explore Customer Success Journeys
Date: August 27, 2025 | Time: 8:00 a.m. PT / 5:00 p.m. CEST
Discover how tailored support solutions can align with your business goals. Learn about Premium, Strategic, and Essentials Support Plans, and gain practical strategies to enhance efficiency and ROI. Don’t miss this opportunity to elevate your experience with Jama Software.
2. Ask Me Anything (AMA) with our VP of Solutions & Support
Date: September 24, 2025 | Time: 8:00 a.m. PT / 5:00 p.m. CEST
Get exclusive insights from Jama Software’s VP of Solutions & Support, Preston Mitchell. Learn time-saving strategies, actionable tips, and answers to your burning questions in this interactive session.
Date: October 15, 2025 | Time: 8:00 a.m. PT / 5:00 p.m. CEST
Join Senior Product Manager Katie Huckett to explore how AI is revolutionizing requirements management and product development. Gain insights into AI-driven tools that enhance clarity, precision, and collaboration.
Date: November 5, 2025 | Time: 8:00 a.m. PT / 5:00 p.m. CEST
Be the first to learn about Jama Software’s upcoming features and enhancements. This session offers a glimpse into the future of innovation and how it can empower your workflows.
Date: December 3, 2025 | Time: 8:00 a.m. PT / 5:00 p.m. CEST
Take a look back at the standout features of Jama Connect in 2025. Learn how these innovations have driven efficiency and collaboration and discover how to maximize their impact in your organization.
Date: January 22, 2026 | Time: 8:00 a.m. PT / 5:00 p.m. CEST
Kick off 2026 with an interactive Lean Coffee session. Collaborate with experts and peers to tackle challenges in product, systems, and software development.
Date: February 10, 2026 | Time: 8:00 a.m. PT / 5:00 p.m. CEST
Engage in a conversation with a leading Jama Software executive. Get firsthand insights into the latest updates, upcoming developments, and strategies to drive impactful results.
Learn from Experts: Gain actionable insights from industry leaders and Jama Software experts.
Collaborate with Peers: Exchange ideas and strategies with power users.
Stay Ahead: Discover the latest innovations and trends shaping the future of product development.
Don’t miss these opportunities to connect, learn, and grow. Reserve your spot today and take the first step toward transforming your potential into action.
Legacy Requirements Tools Present Modern Performance Challenges
When evaluating requirements management platforms, response time emerges as a critical factor that influences user adoption, team efficiency, and project success. Today’s modern engineering projects demand more than legacy solutions can deliver. The speed at which teams can access, modify, and collaborate on requirements directly impacts project timelines, quality outcomes, and overall productivity.
Understanding Response Time in Requirements Management
Response time in requirements management refers to the speed at which a system processes user requests, displays information, and enables collaborative activities. This is comprised of several key indicators:
System Responsiveness: The time required to load requirements, modules, collections, folders, execute searches, and navigate between different sections of the application.
Collaboration Efficiency: How quickly team members can access shared requirements, make modifications, and see updates from stakeholders and team members.
Scalability Under Load: The system’s ability to maintain acceptable performance levels as project complexity increases, and more users access the platform simultaneously. Modern engineering projects often involve thousands of requirements, multiple stakeholders, and tight integrations with various development or System Modeling Tools. Slow response times can create bottlenecks that cascade through the entire development process.
Legacy Architecture and Performance Characteristics
Tools such as IBM® DOORS® have established themselves as a requirements management standard across many industries, particularly in aerospace, automotive, and defense sectors. However, the architecture is a reflection of design decisions made decades ago, which impacts response time characteristics.
Performance Profile
DOORS operates on a client-server architecture that was optimized for local network environments. Users frequently report noticeable delays when:
Loading large requirements modules with complex hierarchies
Performing cross-project searches across multiple projects
Generating reports that span numerous requirement sets
Simple tasks, such as expanding projects and folders
The system’s reliance on a proprietary database and queries for basic operations can result in response times that vary significantly based on database size, network conditions, and concurrent user activity. Unchecked DXL scripts can also be a point of performance degradation and require frequent updating and maintenance.
User Experience Feedback
Teams using DOORS consistently highlight response time as a primary concern. Common feedback includes:
Extended wait times when opening large requirement sets
Delays in search functionality, particularly for complex queries
Slow performance during peak usage periods
Timeout issues when generating comprehensive reports
These performance limitations often force teams to work around the system rather than with it, leading to decreased productivity and compliance issues.
Jama Connect®: Modern Architecture for Enhanced Performance
Jama Connect represents a new generation of requirements management tools, with a modern UI and high performing architecture. This foundation enables significantly improved response times across various operational scenarios.
Architecture Advantages
Jama Connect’s browser-based interface and modern backend infrastructure deliver several performance benefits:
Optimized Data Handling: Jama Connect uses advanced caching mechanisms and efficient data structures to minimize loading times for requirements documents and related artifacts.
Real-Time Collaboration: Built-in mechanisms for live updates and collaborative workflows, such as the Review Center, reduce the latency typically associated with multi-user environments.
Flexible Infrastructure Options: On-Prem and hosted options allow for flexibility when it comes to organizational needs. Jama Connect is certified at SOC 2 as an application and for its hosting environment.
Streamlined Integration: Out-of-the-box integration with systems modeling tools and other best-of-breed applications.
RESTful API: Modern API design enables faster synchronization with external tools and systems.
Performance Metrics and User Feedback
Organizations migrating from legacy tools to Jama Connect report substantial improvements in response time metrics.
Requirement Loading:Users experience faster access to requirements, with loading times reduced by significant margins compared to traditional tools.
Search Performance: Advanced indexing and search algorithms deliver rapid results, even across large requirement sets.
Collaborative Operations: Real-time updates and collaborative features, such as the review center, operate with minimal latency, enabling more efficient team workflows.
Report Generation: Reporting capabilities process complex requirement sets more quickly than traditional approaches.
Comparative Analysis: Response Time Impact on Project Outcomes
Development Velocity
Teams using responsive requirements management tools demonstrate measurable improvements in development velocity. Quick access to requirements information reduces context-switching delays and enables faster decision-making throughout the development process.
Quality Assurance Efficiency
Faster response times in requirements management directly correlate with improved quality assurance processes. Teams can more efficiently trace requirements to test cases, identify coverage gaps, and maintain traceability matrices.
Stakeholder Engagement
Responsive tools encourage broader stakeholder participation in requirements review and approval processes. When accessing and reviewing requirements becomes frictionless, stakeholders are more likely to provide timely feedback and maintain engagement throughout the project lifecycle.
Cost Considerations
While modern tools may require initial investment, the productivity gains from improved response times often justify the cost through:
Reduced time spent waiting for system responses
Improved user adoption and reduced training overhead
Response time and performance represents just one factor in requirements management tool selection, but its impact on daily productivity makes it an essential consideration.
Teams working with complex, rapidly evolving requirements benefit most from platforms that prioritize responsiveness and real-time collaboration. The investment in modern tools often pays dividends through improved team efficiency, faster project delivery, and enhanced stakeholder satisfaction.
Navigating AI Safety with ISO 8800 in Road Vehicles
Editor’s Note: This blog post is based off of content from our recent webinar, presented by Matt Mickle and Jody Nelson from SecuRESafe (SRES). To learn more about how SRES can help your team develop responsibly safe and secure products for the evolving automotive and industrial space, please visit SecuRESafe (SRES).
The automotive industry is in the midst of a transformation, driven by the rise of autonomous systems and artificial intelligence (AI). With the promise of enhanced safety, efficiency, and reliability, these technologies are rapidly advancing. However, as the complexity of AI systems used in road vehicles grows, ensuring their safety continues to be a top priority. Key to achieving this is the emergence of new standards like ISO 8800, a pivotal framework for guiding AI safety practices.
AI-powered road vehicles introduce numerous safety challenges, from understanding edgecase scenarios to managing real-time decision-making under varying conditions. Without proper safety assurances, these systems pose risks that could compromise passenger safety and public trust.
Existing Standards and Their Limitations
Standards like ISO 26262 (Functional Safety) and ISO/PAS 21448 (SOTIF – Safety of the Intended Functionality) have laid solid foundations for addressing traditional safety concerns. However, they do not fully account for the dynamic and adaptive nature of AI systems. This gap underscores the importance of ISO 8800.
ISO 8800 aims to bridge the existing gaps by providing comprehensive guidelines tailored specifically to AI-driven systems and their unique challenges. Unlike traditional systems, AI operates in a highly dynamic environment where decision-making is continuously evolving based on real-time data inputs. This introduces complexity in ensuring predictable and safe behavior, especially in unprecedented situations.
One of the key contributions of ISO 8800 is its focus on the explainability and transparency of AI decisions. By mandating traceable decision-making processes, it ensures that the behavior of AI systems can be understood, audited, and, if necessary, corrected. This is crucial for building trust and accountability, particularly in high-stakes contexts such as autonomous vehicles. Additionally, ISO 8800 emphasizes robust testing methodologies that go beyond conventional verification techniques. These methodologies consider edge cases, rare events, and adaptive learning mechanisms to ensure the AI system performs safely under even the most unpredictable circumstances.
By addressing these and other critical facets, ISO 8800 not only enhances existing standards but also sets a forward-looking precedent for ensuring the safety and reliability of AI systems in a rapidly evolving technological landscape.
ISO 8800 Overview
ISO 8800 focuses on ensuring that AI systems deployed in road environments adhere to rigorous safety standards while maintaining adaptability to real-world challenges. The framework is built around several key pillars, including behavior modeling, risk assessment, and continuous improvement processes.
First, ISO 8800 emphasizes the creation of robust behavior models for AI systems. These models define how an AI system should act in varying scenarios, taking into account factors such as traffic conditions, weather changes, and unforeseen obstacles. By establishing clear behavioral expectations, ISO 8800 aims to prevent unpredictable AI actions that could compromise safety.
Second, the framework requires comprehensive risk assessment protocols. This involves identifying potential vulnerabilities and failure points in AI systems and implementing strategies
to mitigate these risks. Importantly, ISO 8800 promotes a proactive approach, encouraging developers to anticipate edge cases — rare and complex situations that may strain an AI system’s capabilities.
Lastly, continuous improvement is a fundamental aspect of ISO 8800. AI systems must undergo regular updates and evaluations to ensure optimal performance in evolving environments. The framework supports ongoing data collection and analysis, allowing developers to refine algorithms and adapt to new challenges over time. By addressing these areas, ISO 8800 provides a structured foundation for managing the intricacies of AI in road safety, paving the way for innovation that aligns with public trust and regulatory expectations.
Core Principles
Transparency: Ensure clear visibility into AI decision-making processes.
Robustness: Design AI systems to perform reliably even under challenging and unforeseen conditions.
Fairness and Accountability: Mitigate biases in AI algorithms and establish accountability mechanisms for system failures.
Interoperability with Other Standards
One of ISO 8800’s strengths is its compatibility with existing safety standards, complementing ISO 26262 and SOTIF. Together, these frameworks create a holistic approach to managing road vehicle safety.
Benefits of ISO 8800 Adoption
The adoption of ISO 8800 brings forth a range of strategic and operational advantages for organizations working on AI-driven systems, particularly in safety-critical industries. One of the most significant benefits is the enhancement of trust in AI systems. By adhering to standardized guidelines that emphasize safety, transparency, and reliability, companies can demonstrate their commitment to ethical AI practices. This commitment builds confidence not only among regulatory bodies but also within the general public and the broader industry ecosystem.
Another crucial advantage is the reduction of safety risks. ISO 8800 provides a robust framework for identifying, assessing, and mitigating potential hazards associated with AI operations. This systematic approach reduces the likelihood of accidents, malfunctions, or unforeseen consequences, particularly in applications such as autonomous vehicles, healthcare technologies, and industrial automation. Furthermore, by minimizing risks, organizations can lower the potential costs associated with failures or liability claims.
Regulatory compliance also becomes significantly more streamlined with ISO 8800. The standard aligns closely with emerging global regulations, helping organizations stay ahead in meeting legal and procedural requirements. This proactive alignment not only speeds up product approvals but also positions organizations as leaders in regulatory adherence, further strengthening their market reputation.
Lastly, adopting ISO 8800 can unlock new opportunities for innovation and collaboration. By integrating these standards into their development processes, companies create systems that are interoperable and compatible with broader networks. This fosters collaboration with partners, suppliers, and stakeholders while driving industry-wide advancements. Ultimately, ISO 8800 serves as a critical enabler of long-term success in building safe, reliable, and scalable AI systems.
Start with a Gap Analysis: Identify areas where current practices fall short of ISO 8800 requirements.
Develop a Comprehensive Safety Plan: Define clear safety goals and documentation protocols.
Leverage Scalable Tools: Use model-based approaches to manage complexities in AI behavior.
Achieving compliance with ISO 8800 requires a well-structured and proactive approach. Begin by conducting a thorough gap analysis to evaluate your current processes against ISO 8800 standards. This initial step allows organizations to pinpoint specific areas where improvements are necessary, ensuring resources are allocated effectively. Following this, the development of a comprehensive safety plan is crucial. Such a plan should outline clear safety objectives, specify documentation procedures, and include ongoing evaluation mechanisms to ensure continuous improvement. It is essential to integrate roles and responsibilities across teams to foster
accountability and streamline implementation efforts.
Organizations should also invest in scalable tools to manage the inherent complexities of AI system behavior. Model-based approaches can be particularly effective, enabling teams to simulate, test, and validate system responses in a controlled environment. Additionally, prioritizing robust data management practices — such as ensuring data quality, traceability, and transparency — can strengthen the organization’s ability to identify risks and address them proactively. Regular training and awareness programs for staff are equally important to ensure alignment with compliance requirements and foster a culture of safety.
Finally, maintaining consistent communication with stakeholders, including regulatory bodies, industry partners, and end-users, helps build trust and demonstrates a commitment to adhering to ISO 8800. Establishing a feedback loop where compliance practices are periodically reviewed and refined will significantly enhance both reliability and long-term industry credibility.
By embedding these best practices, organizations can ensure a robust framework for safety and compliance while keeping pace with evolving industry standards.
Bridging ALM and MBSE for Modernized Systems Engineering Practices
1: Introduction
In an era marked by rapid advancements in technology, the aerospace and defense industries face increasing complexity in systems engineering. Addressing these challenges requires a paradigm shift towards more integrated and collaborative workflows. This whitepaper explores the essential relationship between Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) and Model-Based Systems Engineering (MBSE), highlighting how bridging these disciplines can modernize systems engineering practices.
2: The Growing Complexity of Systems Engineering
The complexity of systems engineering has grown exponentially in recent years, driven by advancements in technology, globalization, and the increasing interconnectivity of systems. Modern systems often integrate a wide array of specialized components, from hardware to software, all of which must seamlessly function as a whole. This challenge is further compounded by the need for performance optimization, cybersecurity considerations, and adherence to regulatory and safety standards, which vary across industries and regions.
For example, in the aerospace sector, the development of next-generation aircraft requires the integration of advanced avionics, autonomous systems, and material innovations. These aircraft must not only meet stringent performance criteria but also comply with international safety regulations and environmental standards. Similarly, in the defense industry, modern weapon systems rely heavily on interoperability between software-driven subsystems, such as sensors, communication networks, and artificial intelligence algorithms, all of which must operate flawlessly in highly dynamic environments.
To manage this complexity effectively, systems engineers must adopt integrated methodologies that bridge gaps between disciplines and stakeholders. Traditional linear workflows and siloed engineering practices can no longer keep pace with the demands of today’s systems. The introduction of tools and frameworks like MBSE enables teams to visualize and validate system designs in a digital environment, ensuring all components meet specifications before physical prototypes are developed. Combined with ALM, MBSE enhances traceability and communication, fostering collaboration across various teams and ensuring that every aspect of the system remains aligned with the overall mission objectives.
By leveraging integrated approaches and modern engineering tools, organizations can address the escalating challenges of systems complexity, enabling them to deliver innovative solutions while minimizing risk and maintaining efficiency.
The demand for innovative, safe, and efficient systems in aerospace and defense has led to unprecedented levels of complexity. Systems engineering processes need to manage a significant volume of requirements, design models, stakeholder expectations, and compliance standards. Traditional engineering approaches fall short of addressing these demands effectively, creating the need for solutions that promote end-to-end traceability and model-driven development.
Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) is the framework that encompasses the entire lifecycle of a system, from concept and design to implementation, testing, and maintenance. ALM ensures alignment between business needs, development efforts, and operational goals.
3.2 What is MBSE?
Model-Based Systems Engineering (MBSE) represents a paradigm shift by focusing on the use of models as the primary means to design, analyze, and validate system behavior. MBSE emphasizes simulation, system-wide visualization, and clear documentation to foster collaboration and problem-solving.
4. The Value of Integration
Integrating ALM and MBSE enhances engineering by enabling a seamless flow of information and fostering cross-disciplinary collaboration. This integration is fundamental to achieving traceability between requirements, design, and verification, ensuring that projects meet critical objectives efficiently.
4.1 Improved Traceability
By linking tools like Jama Connect with system modeling tools, teams can create a direct trace from system requirements, design decisions, test cases, and compliance reports to the system model analyses, parameters, and behaviors. This level of traceability minimizes risks and helps ensure that the final product aligns with initial specifications.
4.2 Enhanced Collaboration
Bridging ALM and MBSE facilitates better communication among stakeholders by providing shared insights and clear documentation of system behaviors. This reduces misunderstandings and promotes alignment across all project phases.
4.3 Accelerated Development Cycles
Integrated workflows reduce redundancies, streamline handoffs, and eliminate rework, allowing engineering teams to accelerate system development while maintaining high quality and compliance standards.
Jama Connect is a powerful tool that brings cohesiveness to Model-Based Systems Engineering by enabling efficient requirements management, traceability, and collaboration throughout the system lifecycle. By integrating with MBSE processes, Jama Connect provides a centralized platform where teams can define, manage, and validate requirements while ensuring alignment with system models. Through its robust traceability features, Jama Connect ensures that every requirement is linked to design elements, testing artifacts, and verification processes, creating a comprehensive digital thread.
One of the key strengths of Jama Connect is its ability to foster collaboration among diverse stakeholders. The platform offers an intuitive interface for real-time communication, enabling engineers, project managers, and business teams to work together seamlessly, ensuring clarity and reducing the risk of misunderstandings. Additionally, Jama Connect’s alignment with compliance standards streamlines audits and regulatory reviews, essential for industries with rigorous certification requirements.
When linking Jama Connect with system modeling tools, such as SysML modeling solutions, Jama Connect facilitates continuous synchronization between system requirements and system architecture models. This reduces errors, eliminates redundancies, and supports iterative development, helping teams adapt to changes quickly. Ultimately, Jama Connect empowers organizations to align engineering objectives with business goals, ensuring that the end product meets customer needs and system specifications efficiently.
LemonTree.Connect™ for Enterprise Architecture
LemonTree.Connect™ acts as a bridge between ALM and MBSE tools, offering advanced capabilities for merging and synchronizing data to maintain consistency across systems models and requirements.
When used together, Jama Connect and LemonTree.Connect™ create a unified environment for modern engineering practices.
Jama Connect® Features in Five: Jama Connect Advisor™
Learn how you can supercharge your systems development process! In this blog series, we’re pulling back the curtains to give you a look at a few of Jama Connect’s powerful features… in under five minutes.
In this Features in Five video, Katie Huckett, Senior Product Manager at Jama Software, will introduce viewers to Jama Connect Advisor™, Jama Connect’s natural language processing (NLP) tool, designed to improve requirement quality.
In this video, learn how Jama Connect Advisor enhances your product management by:
Reducing authoring errors
Increasing clarity
Optimizing foundational product needs and requirements managed in Jama Connect Cloud
VIDEO TRANSCRIPT
Katie Huckett: Hi. I’m Katie Huckett, Senior Product Manager at Jama Software. In this video, I’ll introduce you to Jama Connect Advisor, an add-on to Jama Connect Cloud that uses engineering-based natural language processing to optimize requirements authoring. It helps you write effective, well-organized requirements with speed and accuracy.
We’ll explore how Jama Connect Advisor can enhance your product development by reducing errors, increasing clarity, and optimizing the foundational requirements managed within Jama Connect Cloud. Jama Connect Advisor is designed to help teams author complex requirements quickly and accurately using AI and engineering-focused natural language processing. It minimizes disruption to engineering workflows while improving quality. How does it work?
Jama Connect Advisor applies the globally recognized INCOSE requirements rules and EARS syntax patterns. Even experienced engineers find it challenging to follow all forty INCOSE rules and six EARS patterns while writing even a single requirement.
That’s where Jama Connect Advisor steps in to streamline the process and enhance productivity. Now I’d like to show you a demonstration of how Jama Connect Advisor enables teams to intelligently improve requirements quality and usability, minimize requirement ambiguity and contradictions, which are the source of seventy to eighty-five percent of rework, and save time authoring, reviewing, analyzing, and updating requirement statements.
Huckett: There are a few different ways that you can use Jama Connect Advisor within the Jama Connect Cloud application.
Let’s start by adding a new requirement. Once you’ve added your requirement into the description field, you’ll notice the highlighted text to analyze the prompt underneath the description field. Once you’re ready, go ahead and select the text that you’d like to analyze and select analyze selection.
Underneath the description field, you’ll see a quick summary of your INCOSE score as well as any errors found, if any. You can move on at this point and save your item, or you can go ahead and view the details if you’d like to make changes at this point. So I can see on the slide over panel, the text that’s been analyzed, what my INCOSE score is, eighty-seven percent, and then the different identifiers that I’ve flagged it for the INCOSE rules. Underneath, you’ll see the EARS errors, if any were found. You’ll also see some information about the EARS notation pattern that your requirement might align with. I’m gonna go ahead and save this item, and I’ll wait to make my changes in a moment.
Now that I’ve saved that, let’s say I want to analyze a whole group of existing requirements. I’m going to go ahead and analyze all items within my set on the side here. So I’ll select all items and you’ll notice the batch analyze button, appears in the top right-hand corner. Once you select that, you’ll be given a summary view of what will be analyzed. So you can see I’ve got seventeen items selected here. All seventeen of those items happen to have a Jama Connect Advisor-enabled field on it, and then we have thirty-four fields per, these items. So it appears we have two Jama Connect Advisor enabled fields, per each item within this group.
Once you select analyze, the slide of our panel will pop up on the right-hand side. You’ll notice your group of requirements. Each item is listed at the top within this drop-down. You can navigate with the drop-down or the directional arrows. And then underneath, we also have a field drop-down. So as I mentioned, we have two fields per item type on this particular example. So I can swap between those as well either using the drop down or the directional arrows to move through.
So now that I’ve come in here and I see the, recommendations, I’d like to go in and edit my item to make some changes. So here, I want to remove some of the items that were flagged. I’m gonna remove this and just update this to say, you know, users can create a login using we don’t wanna use pronouns, per that flag. So I’m gonna change this to using an Apple ID, email.
Huckett: I’m gonna update this to be an actual logical condition with or social media. And then I’m gonna remove the example of LinkedIn because I don’t necessarily need that, and I’ll just update that to end the sentence there. Once I’ve made my changes, I can select the text again in the edit quick edit mode, analyze the selection, and I can see here my INCOSE rule score is now a hundred percent. I still have to deal with my ears errors, but so far so good on INCOSE.
I can view my details again in the slide-over panel and update here. I can also close that back out, and I can return to my batch analysis results by selecting the latest analysis link at the top, and that will take me right back in where I was before I made those changes. Now I can go ahead and save my item and complete those changes going forward. If I want to work through these requirements across multiple sessions or maybe I just wanna have a benchmark of what my score was before I started making my edits, you can then generate a report within the slide-over panel.
That will open up in your reports history page where you can download the report into Excel.
Once you open the report that was generated, we have a few different tabs you can work through in the worksheet. The first one just gives you some general information. What’s the average score of your requirements, the minimum, and maximum score, your total number of valid requirements, and then if you did have any invalid requirements as well. The file analysis reports, tab will give you a complete breakdown of all the requirements that were analyzed, their score, and then any corresponding INCOSE flags that may have popped up within the analysis.
We also have an explanation of each INCOSE flag as long as with their associated description. And then if your, report did happen to include any invalid requirements for any reason, those will be included in their separate sheet as well. Thank you for watching this demonstration of Jama Connect Advisor. If you would like to learn more about how Jamala Connect can optimize your product development process, please visit our website at jamasoftware.com
If you are already a Jama Connect customer and would like more information about Jama Connect Advisor, please contact your Customer Success Manager or Jama Software Consultant.
How Smart Companies Turn Economic Challenges into Opportunities to Get Ahead
In the past, when economic uncertainty hits, most companies instinctively tighten their belts and cut spending to prepare for the worst. But what if this conventional wisdom is wrong? What if the smartest move during tough times is actually to invest more aggressively in technology and innovation? Let’s dig into the data and lessons we can learn.
Recent research from Accenture shows overwhelmingly that companies that scaled (and some even doubling down on) their technology investments during the COVID-19 pandemic didn’t just survive…they thrived, growing revenue 5X faster than their peers and competitors. And while the pandemic created a unique dynamic of economic, political, and social challenges, there are lessons here that can be learned during any economic uncertainty, including the headwinds we’re seeing right now.
It’s no secret that the pandemic wasn’t just a health crisis; it was a massive stress test for business resilience. However, companies that emerged stronger shared a lot of common characteristics, including investing heavily in cloud infrastructure, artificial intelligence (AI), and digital transformation while their competitors were thinking more shortsightedly by cutting costs.
In fact, these “LEADER” companies didn’t just weather the storm…they used it as a launching pad for unprecedented growth.
The “Leaders,” “Leapfroggers,” and the “Laggards”
Accenture’s comprehensive study included 4,300 companies across 25 countries and showed three distinct categories of technology adopters during the pandemic.
Leaders represent the top 10% of companies that had already established strong technology foundations before COVID-19. These organizations stepped up their adoption of cloud computing, AI, and IoT technologies when the crisis hit. Their strategic advantage? They were already positioned to scale quickly when opportunity knocked.
Leapfroggers make up 18% of the sample and represent perhaps the most interesting group. These companies accelerated what would typically be multi-year digital transformations into mere months. They moved aggressively (and strategically) from being technology followers to leaders, demonstrating that timing and execution matter more than just being first.
The “Laggards” are the bottom 25% of companies that only recently began investing in new technologies. The decision to invest was made primarily just to maintain basic operations during the pandemic. This “reactive” approach to technology adoption left Laggards struggling to keep pace with market changes. Many still feeling that impact now.
What we’re seeing is that the financial results speak volumes. The Leaders are now growing revenue 5X faster than Laggards — a huge increase from the 2x growth differential that existed pre-pandemic. The widening of this gap demonstrates that technology investments are creating compound advantages over (a short period of) time.
Strategic Technology Investments That Drove Growth
It’s also clear that the companies that succeeded during COVID-19 didn’t just increase their technology spending randomly; they made strategic investments and changes in specific areas that delivered immediate and long-term value.
Cloud Infrastructure
Cloud adoption emerged as the foundation for pandemic-era success. And for Jama Software customers, this should come as no surprise.
Among Leapfroggers, 80% had adopted some form of cloud technology by 2017, but this figure jumped to 98% by 2020. More importantly, 72% of Leaders accelerated their cloud security investments, while 68% increased their hybrid cloud spending.
This cloud-first approach provides the flexibility and scalability needed to support remote work, handle fluctuating demand, and rapidly deploy new capabilities – all of which was key to success during the pandemic, and now. Companies with robust cloud infrastructure could pivot quickly as market conditions change.
Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning (ML)
The study showed that 59% of Leaders accelerated their AI and ML investments during the pandemic. These technologies allowed companies to analyze rapidly changing market conditions, optimize supply chains, and personalize customer experiences at scale. All factors that made the difference between success and failure during the pandemic.
AI-powered analytics helped companies identify new opportunities in real-time, while machine learning algorithms optimized everything from inventory management to customer service. Organizations who invest in these capabilities are able to make data-driven decisions faster than their competitors.
IoT and Process Automation
The research showed that 70% of Leaders increased their Internet of Things (IoT) investments, while 60% accelerated (or invested in) robotic process automation (RPA) adoption. The outcome was that these technologies eliminated manual processes, reduced errors, and freed up human resources for higher-value activities.
The companies who invested in process improvement saw incredible outcomes. IoT sensors provided real-time visibility into operations, enabling predictive maintenance and optimized resource allocation. RPA handled routine tasks, allowing employees to focus on strategic initiatives and customer relationships. The investments paid dividends.
Investments in Collaboration
While collaboration may feel like a “soft skill” investment, it can make a huge difference to your bottom line.
70% of leading companies looked to aggressively increase funding for training to build an agile and collaborative organization. By prioritizing employee development and leveraging digital collaboration tools, these organizations foster better communication, faster decision-making, and more cohesive teamwork.
Examples of these investments included virtual platforms, real-time communication technologies, and programs that encouraged cross-functional alignment. The result? Improved project execution, enhanced innovation, and stronger connections across distributed teams, driving both operational efficiency and global scalability.
Three Strategic Imperatives for Digital Transformation
The research shows that the most successful companies during the pandemic followed three key strategic imperatives. These are the lessons that can guide any organization through economic uncertainty. Let’s call these the 3 Rs.
(R) Replatform to the Cloud
Leaders moved beyond basic cloud adoption to build what Accenture calls “Systems Strength.” This means reducing redundant technologies (maybe this can be our 4th R), eliminating disconnected data silos, and gaining the computing power and flexibility that cloud platforms provide.
But cloud replatforming isn’t just about moving existing systems to the cloud — it’s about rethinking (or reimagining) how technology supports business objectives.
Companies that approach cloud migration strategically can easily scale resources up or down based on demand, experiment with new capabilities quickly, and integrate disparate systems more effectively.
(R) Reframe with Innovation-First Strategy
Successful companies shifted from viewing technology as a cost center to treating it as a growth engine. 67% of Leapfroggers sought to aggressively increase revenue from non-core business lines, using technology to explore new markets and business models.
This innovation-first mindset encourages experimentation and rapid iteration – and it clearly pays off. Companies that embrace this approach can test new products, services, and market strategies without massive upfront investments.
(R) Reach Across All Business Functions
Technology investments delivered the greatest returns when they extended across entire organizations rather than being confined to IT departments. 65% of Leaders prioritized employee happiness through digital-based flexible work arrangements, compared to just 43% of Laggards.
This holistic approach to technology adoption creates seamless interactions between humans and machines, improved collaboration across departments, and built organizational capabilities that support long-term growth. There’s that “soft skill” investment again, paying off handsomely.
Prioritizing Employee Experience and Collaboration
If you’re reading this, we don’t have to tell you that the pandemic fundamentally changed how people work, and successful companies recognized that technology investments must support human needs as well as business objectives. We’re all living proof of that.
Digital-First Work Arrangements
Companies that thrived during COVID-19 didn’t just enable remote work; they reimagined work itself, perhaps for the first time in decades. They invested in collaboration platforms, digital communication tools, and virtual meeting technologies that made distributed teams as effective as co-located ones. While some company leaders feared working from home might decrease productivity, those who embraced the new way of working saw that employees actually adapted quickly and efficiently to the change. Many employees found that without office distractions, they were actually MORE productive and efficient.
And so the data shows that these investments in employee experience paid dividends in terms of productivity, retention, and recruitment. Companies with superior digital work environments began to attract top talent regardless of geographic location.
Human-Machine Collaboration
66% of Leaders focused on creating seamless interactions between humans and machines (the theme of the decade, maybe?). This approach recognized that technology should augment human capabilities rather than replace them. This is a practice we stand behind as an organization, always including “human in the loop” in our AI process workflows.
Successful companies designed workflows that leveraged both human creativity and machine efficiency. The successful balance was AI handling data processing and pattern recognition, while humans focused on strategy, relationship building, and creative problem-solving.
Agile and Collaborative Structures
70% of Leaders invested aggressively in training to build agile and collaborative organization structures. An investment that these companies recognized required corresponding changes in how teams work together.
Agile methodologies enabled rapid response to changing market conditions, while collaborative tools broke down silos between departments.
The outcome is that companies that have mastered both technology and organizational agility adapt quickly to new challenges and opportunities.
Quantifiable Benefits and ROI of Technology Investment
The financial returns from strategic technology investments during the pandemic were substantial and measurable.
Revenue Growth Acceleration
Like we said above, Leaders achieved 5x faster revenue growth than Laggards, showing a significant acceleration from the 2x advantage that existed before the pandemic. This widening gap clearly shows that technology investments create compound advantages over time.
Leapfroggers achieved 4x faster revenue growth than Laggards, proving that aggressive technology adoption can quickly close competitive gaps. These companies demonstrated that multi-year digital transformations can actually be done in months, achieving rapid ROI on their technology investments.
Operational Efficiency Gains
Companies that invested in automation and AI reported significant efficiency improvements. Process automation reduced manual effort by up to 50%, while AI-powered analytics accelerated decision-making and improved accuracy.
Cloud infrastructure investments provided both cost savings and operational flexibility. Companies could scale resources based on demand, reducing waste ($$$) while ensuring adequate capacity for growth.
Market Expansion Opportunities
Technology investments enabled companies to enter new markets and serve new customer segments. Digital platforms reduced barriers to entry, while data analytics provided insights into customer needs and preferences.
67% of Leapfroggers actively sought to increase revenue from non-core business lines, using technology to explore new opportunities. This diversification strategy was able to reduce dependence on traditional revenue sources and create multiple paths to growth.
Practical Lessons for Companies Facing Economic Downturns
The success stories from the pandemic provide a roadmap for any organization facing economic uncertainty.
Invest Aggressively in Core Technologies
Economic downturns create opportunities to gain competitive advantages while competitors are cutting costs. Companies should prioritize investments in cloud infrastructure, AI, and automation technologies that deliver both immediate efficiency gains and long-term strategic value.
Focus on technologies that eliminate manual processes, improve decision-making, and enable rapid response to market changes. These investments provide measurable ROI while building capabilities for future growth.
Compress Digital Transformation Timelines
Economic pressure creates urgency that can actually accelerate digital transformation. Companies should use downturns as opportunities to make bold changes that might be difficult during normal times.
Leapfroggers compressed multi-year transformations into months by focusing on high-impact initiatives and accepting some risk. This aggressive approach enabled them to emerge from the crisis stronger than before.
Focus on Employee Experience and Collaboration
Technology investments must support human needs as well as business objectives. Companies that prioritize employee experience through digital tools and flexible work arrangements will attract and retain top talent.
Invest in collaboration platforms, communication tools, and training programs that enable effective remote and hybrid work. These investments pay dividends in productivity, retention, and recruitment.
Embrace an Innovation-First Mindset
View technology investments as growth engines rather than cost centers. Look for opportunities to enter new markets, serve new customer segments, and create new revenue streams through digital capabilities.
Encourage experimentation and rapid iteration. Economic downturns provide cover for bold moves that might seem risky during normal times.
Building Resilience Through Strategic Technology Adoption
The pandemic taught us that economic disruptions are inevitable, but they don’t have to be devastating. Companies that invest strategically in technology during downturns can emerge stronger and more competitive.
The key is to view economic uncertainty not as a threat to be weathered, but as an opportunity to build advantages that competitors can’t easily replicate. Technology investments made during difficult times often deliver the highest returns because they’re made with focus and urgency.
Organizations considering technology investments during economic downturns should remember that the gap between leaders and laggards continues to widen. The companies that act decisively now will be positioned to capture disproportionate growth when conditions improve.
For teams managing complex development processes, ensuring regulatory compliance, and coordinating global collaboration, the lessons from pandemic-era success stories are particularly relevant. Strategic technology investments can streamline operations, reduce manual effort, and create scalable systems that support both current needs and future growth.
Explore Jama Connect Today
Ready to transform your organization’s approach to requirements management and compliance? Jama Connect has helped hundreds of the world’s leading companies scale and thrive during uncertainty. Discover how our platform can help you reduce documentation time, ensure regulatory compliance, and build the collaborative workflows that drive sustainable growth — even in challenging economic conditions.
Disclaimer: This blog post was written with the assistance of AI, particularly the portions summarizing Accenture Research. This blog post was edited and reviewed for accuracy by Kenzie Jonsson, Mario Maldari, and Decoteau Wilkerson.
Jama Connect® Continues to Dominate as the #1 Leader in Requirements Management Software
We’re proud to share that Jama Connect has once again proven its excellence, securing the #1 spot in G2’s Summer 2025 Grid® Report for Requirements Management Software! This marks the sixth consecutive quarter that we’ve been named the overall leader, solidifying our position as the go-to solution for teams managing complex product and software development lifecycles.
This recognition, driven by the feedback and trust of our users, continues to place Jama Connect ahead of competitors like Polarion, IBM® DOORS®, and Codebeamer. It’s a testament to our commitment to innovation and customer satisfaction.
G2’s Grid Reports rank software solutions based on real user reviews, data from online sources, and analysis via G2’s proprietary algorithm. With this rigorous evaluation, the Summer 2025 report highlights the industry’s top performers, and Jama Connect leads the pack yet again.
For this quarter, Jama Connect achieved a customer satisfaction score of 97, accompanied by over 150 unique reviews praising our ease of use, unmatched collaboration features, and ability to streamline traceability across projects.
This quarter, Jama Connect didn’t just hold onto its top spot — we earned recognition across a wide array of categories. Here’s a breakdown of the accolades we garnered in the G2 Summer 2025 report:
Overall Leader
Momentum Leader
Small-Business Leader
Mid-Market Leader
Enterprise Leader
EMEA Leader
Europe Leader
These achievements underscore the versatility and scalability of Jama Connect, making it an ideal choice for teams of any size, across multiple industries and regions.
What Our Users Are Saying
We owe this success to the valuable insights shared by our customers, whose feedback drives us forward. Here are just a few highlights from recent G2 reviews:
“Jama Connect is extremely intuitive. Team members are able to use it immediately without any prior training. We do have a training program that is recommended for the entire team but that serves to show everyone how to take the best out of the tool.” – Alexandre, Systems Engineer, Mid-Market
This recognition bolsters our mission to help organizations transition from outdated document-based processes to a modern requirements management platform. With Jama Connect, teams can achieve:
Enhanced clarity and accountability through real-time collaboration
Seamless traceability to manage requirements, risks, and test cases
Compliance with industry-specific regulations and standards
Our continued focus on innovation ensures that we meet the evolving needs of organizations navigating increasing product complexity and regulatory demand.
A Heartfelt Thank You
This milestone is not just our achievement but a shared success with our users. Your trust and feedback inspire us to deliver outstanding solutions that simplify your workflows and enhance your product lifecycle management.
Thank you for being part of this incredible journey. Rest assured, we’re committed to pushing the boundaries of what’s possible with requirements management.
Thank you for choosing Jama Connect as your partner in solving complex challenges! Here’s to continuing this legacy of excellence together!
Jama Software is always looking for news that would benefit and inform our industry partners. As such, we’ve curated a series of customer and industry spotlight articles that we found insightful. In this blog post, we share an article from VDA, titled “Automotive Industry Signs Memorandum of Understanding”, written by Lena Anzenhofer and published on June 23, 2025.
Automotive Industry Signs Memorandum of Understanding
Automotive industry signs Memorandum of Understanding for joint software development based on open source
Collaboration for more speed, efficiency, and security in software development and the basis for an open and collaborative ecosystem
With the support of the German Association of the Automotive Industry (VDA), 11 companies in the automotive industry have agreed on pre-competitive cooperation in open source software development.
A corresponding Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) was signed today at the 29th International Automotive Electronics Congress (AEK).
With the increasing importance and complexity of vehicle software, it is becoming critical for the industry to increase speed and efficiency in development while ensuring high quality and safety.
A significant portion of the vehicle software is not directly accessible to the user and therefore not differentiating. This fact allows the corresponding software modules to be developed jointly in an open and collaborative ecosystem.
In order to achieve the necessary functional safety for automotive series software, a groundbreaking development process for open source was developed in preparation for certification according to the relevant standards.
In addition, by providing executable software modules instead of detailed specifications, standardization and increased development speed are achieved through the so-called code-first approach.
The software development takes place in a transparent and vendor-independent environment of the Eclipse Foundation as part of the S-CORE project.
This ecosystem is open, both through software interoperability with relevant industry standards and for contributions and collaboration from other European and international companies.
The initiative’s timeline envisages that the software scope for series development of a platform for autonomous driving will be available in 2026.
The modular software scope can be adapted or expanded and then made available to the industry as a customized distribution for series development. This allows manufacturers and suppliers to focus on differentiating features while maintaining core components together. This creates a strong foundation for innovation – and the freedom to focus on what makes the difference for the customer.
“Together we are building a future-proof and powerful software ecosystem – open, transparent and secure,” VDA Managing Director Dr. Marcus Bollig said.
BMW Group Dr. Christoph Grote, SVP Electronics and Software
“The BMW Group believes that integrated ecosystems with open-source platforms and tools are a key driver for the development of mobility solutions. A shared code-first approach will be the foundation for functional innovations in our future products. We are committed to ECLIPSE S-CORE as a promising open-source approach for our upcoming projects.”
Continental AG Karsten Michels, Head of Product line “High Performance Computer”, BA “Architecture and Network Solutions”
“By uniting open-source and virtualization with safety certification and standardization, Continental’s contribution to an open and safe HPC Middleware Stack accelerates the transition to Software Defined Vehicles and significantly reduces time-to-market.”
ECLIPSE Foundation Mike Milinkovich, Executive Director
“Collaboration in the development of secure and open-source automotive platforms is a critical factor for the automotive industry. The Eclipse Foundation’s governance model enables open collaboration between OEMs, tiers, and tech players within the Eclipse SDV Working Group. We recognize the trust placed in us as the stewards of such a strategic initiative and embrace the challenge of making it a success.”
ETAS GmbH Dr. Thomas Irawan, CEO
“Building on our role as a pioneer in automotive platform software, we are driving industry-wide innovation through an open source ecosystem, accelerating time to market, and delivering safe and sustainable solutions for the mobility of tomorrow.”
HELLA GmbH & Co. KGaA Dr. Dietmar Stapel, Vice President Product Segment Radar
“We are pleased to support the Automotive Grade Open Source Ecosystem. Open, common standards are essential for secure integration and form the foundation for delivering innovative, value-added automotive features.”
Mercedes-Benz AG Magnus Östberg, Chief Software Officer
“As the creators of the automotive open source ecosystem, we are actively driving the future of automotive software with our code-first strategy. This is our clear commitment to open standards as the foundation for innovation.”
Qorix Markus Schupfner, CEO
“Qorix is committed to a powerful, open software ecosystem that combines functional safety and the speed of innovation – from architecture to production deployment.”
Robert Bosch GmbH Dr. Mathias Pilin, CTO Mobility
“We promote software solutions that integrate seamlessly across vehicle platforms, systems, and supplier technologies – for a software-defined mobility of the future.”
Valeo Brain Division Joachim Mathes, CTO
“Valeo has decided to join S-CORE and contribute key elements of its vOS to the stack. We are confident that a greater level of standardization and reuse will benefit the entire industry.”
Vector Informatik GmbH Dr. Matthias Traub, Managing Director
“With our joint initiative for an open software ecosystem for automotive ECUs, we are adding a powerful tool to the industry’s HPC full-stack toolbox.”
Volkswagen AG Dr. Oliver Seifert, Vice President R&D Infotainment and Connect at Dr. Ing. h.c. F. Porsche AG
“Through this open source ecosystem in automotive development, we shorten the time to market, reduce application development effort, and drive innovation.”
ZF Friedrichshafen Torsten Gollewski, Executive Vice President Corporate R&D Innovation & Technology
“Software development based on open source is the key to greater efficiency and speed. This is necessary to remain internationally competitive. The VDA initiative is a good example of the benefits that collaboration can bring.”
Jama Connect® Attains Level 2 TISAX Certification from TÜV SÜD
Jama Software, the industry’s leading requirements management and traceability solution provider, announced that it has achieved Level 2 Trusted Information Security Assessment Exchange (TISAX) certification from TÜV SÜD. TISAX is a security standard created by the German Association of the Automotive Industry (VDA).
Jama Connect is now the only requirements management application that is both TISAX and SOC 2 certified
This achievement underscores Jama Software’s unwavering commitment to information security and data protection. TISAX certification is a critical benchmark for meeting the stringent security requirements of German OEMs and their global supply chains, ensuring that sensitive customer and product data is handled with the highest standards of confidentiality, integrity, and availability.
For our customers, this certification unequivocally demonstrates that Jama Software’s solutions and processes embody the highest standards of information security. It empowers organizations to meet stringent compliance requirements, simplifies and accelerates procurement processes, and fortifies trust in an era of increasingly complex regulatory demands and cyber threats. With this certification, customers gain not just confidence but a decisive edge in addressing their most critical security challenges.
“Jama Software is committed to enabling the highest levels of security for our customers. In support of our rapid growth in the automotive sector, we have added TISAX certification to complement our market leading SOC 2 certified application,” said Neil Stroud, General Manager Automotive & Semiconductor, Jama Software.
Jama Software is focused on maximizing innovation success in multidisciplinary engineering organizations. Numerous firsts for humanity in fields such as fuel cells, electrification, space, software-defined vehicles, surgical robotics, and more all rely on Jama Connect requirements management software to minimize the risk of defects, rework, cost overruns, and recalls. Using Jama Connect, engineering organizations can now intelligently manage the development process by leveraging Live Traceability™ across best-of-breed tools to measurably improve outcomes. Our rapidly growing customer base spans the automotive, medical device, life sciences, semiconductor, aerospace & defense, industrial manufacturing, consumer electronics, financial services, and insurance industries.
Simplify Airborne Systems Lifecycle Milestones with Categories
Gain Clarity, Reduce Risks, and Stay Compliant.
Struggling to keep track of deliverables across complex aerospace projects? You’re not alone. Managing deadlines and milestones often feels like navigating a maze of documents, spreadsheets, and shifting priorities.
In this webinar, you’ll discover how Jama Connect®’s Categories feature can bring order to your milestones, improve transparency, and align deliverables with key compliance standards like ARP4754.
What You’ll Learn:
How to Enable Categories: Simplify system development milestone tracking from start to finish.
Clarity on Deadlines: Learn how to make engineering deadlines easier to understand and act on.
Improving On-Time Performance: Organize milestone deliverables and optimize workflows to avoid delays.
Compliance Alignment: Map development milestones to standards such as ARP4754 with ease.
VIDEO TRANSCRIPT
Patrick Knowles: I’m Patrick Knowles. It’s great to meet all of you. Today, we are going to be looking at simplifying airborne systems, specifically lifecycle milestones, by using Categories in Jama Connect. As I mentioned, my name is Patrick Knowles. I’m a senior solutions consultant here. And it’s just a pleasure to work with y’all. I’m in our aerospace and defense vertical, so my expertise comes from that within the industry. And now I’m happy to be sharing that with you all as I work through consulting, as well as webinars. Today’s agenda, we’re going to tackle really the core problem, the complex challenge of milestone deliveries. From there, I’m going to introduce this category’s functionality and features to all of you. If it’s something you’re familiar with, this will be a breeze. If it’s something new to you, I hope this is a great introduction to how it works.
Then we’ll talk about how you categorize information specifically with some best practices. So, for even those who are used to using Categories, this should be a refreshing little bit with maybe some new tricks that you can utilize. And then finally, we’re going to talk about deploying this to your collaborative teams, which is really critical. Because if the data’s Categorized on day one and then the data changes or new data comes in, your teams are going to need to know how to manage this, how to look at the information. And it’s going to help solve that complex challenge of milestone delivery and some of the issues that we’re going to talk about there.
So, this complex challenge, deadlines, and stress. There’s data everywhere. It’s disconnected, it’s disparate, it’s annoying. That’s the core root problem here. But to elaborate on it, engineering in the digital age can feel like a maze. There’s sometimes a lack of top-down visibility to deliverables. So, if you’re a program manager or a lead systems engineer or a chief engineer, you might struggle to see all the work that your teams are doing. And sometimes there’s a lack of bottom-up visibility to the milestone. So, if you’re an engineer, you might not know about what milestone comes next, what’s due at that milestone. A lot of the time, that information is on a Word document or an Excel sheet, or maybe a Confluence page at best, where it’s listing out everything that’s due, but it doesn’t inherently connect to anything that is due and what those exact bits of information on.
And that leads to some unclear methods for contributing. How do I, as an engineer, ensure that we’re going to meet this deadline? I know what I see on my scrum board or I see from my manager, or whatever it might be, but maybe at the end of the day I don’t really understand exactly how my little bit of data is getting into that greater picture for this delivery to our customer or to our internal stakeholders. And then, of course, the common issue is always that data is disconnected, but that’s what Jama Connect is here to help with. We’re here to help you guide through that maze and to connect your data together to solve these key issues.
So, the risky scenario here is that your data is disconnected from a milestone, and that maybe you forget to deliver a certain part of the data, or you deliver outdated bits of data, or anything else that might happen there. And it’s pretty common across engineering. It doesn’t really matter where you work, there’s always this struggle to get everything ready from pencils down to delivery or whatever it might be. There are bigger views related to all of this work. There are stakeholders, customers, and, of course, the program leaders who need to see this information. And they need to see the most up-to-date, correct information. And without a clear way to connect your requirements specifically, because that’s what we’re going to mostly talk about here, is requirements. But without a really clear way to connect your requirements to your milestones or the rest of your data to milestones, you run the risk of simply leaving things behind.
Knowles: So, how can Jama Connect help? Well, the specific use case we’re going to talk about today is enabling our Categories functionality in the tool. And we’re going to line it up with milestones from regulatory documents. Specifically, this example is going to be based on ARP4754B. However, if you are running the NASA systems engineering life cycle and you know the milestones in there, you could also line this up to that or any other number of product lifecycle milestones. We’re going to categorize data directly into things. And that’s going to help you really line it up to each of these listed items over there in the screenshot on the right. And then your members of the team are going to be able to filter, and view this data, and see it grow and add to it. And it’s going to be very transparent for them, how they’re connecting their information to the greater milestone.
With our foundation laid, there on what the problem is, I want to talk more about what Categories are. So, what exactly is a Category? Why do we believe this is a great option for you and the team to try and enable within your tool? Specifically, Categories have a similar feel to some other features within Jama Connect, like tags and pick lists. However, Categories win out overall with this specific use case for a number of reasons. First and foremost, Categories are admin-enabled and controlled, so your general user can’t populate a Category. They can assign information to a Category, but they can’t create new ones. Which means that, unlike tags, this is a kind of configuration managed by your admins. Pick lists are also configuration managed by your admins. However, they aren’t globally accessible to all item types. You’re going to have to create a field for every single pick list that you want assigned different item types.
Categories, however, can be globally applied to an entire project or to the whole instance of Jama Connect. That means that you don’t have to go and assign them to each of your item types. They’re going to connect to folders. They’re going to connect to texts. They’re going to connect with your specific requirement types, whatever it might be. And so, that’s an advantage that Categories have. Also, Categories can be available across multiple projects or just one specific project, which helps if you have a kind of multi-layered approach to your Jama Connect development of requirements. Finally, I’ll explain why not to use tags and pick lists. Tags, again, are creatable and by the user, and prone to error. If you type a capital letter in the wrong spot or put the wrong vowel in the wrong place, that’s going to be there in perpetuity, unless you have really strong tag cleanup processes.
And pick lists and multi-selects, you have to create it for each item type. You have to maintain the pick list. And then if an item type is introduced to a project, you’re going to have to re-add that pick list to it, and so on and so forth. So Categories is a little broader, but also just as controlled. And so, you’re able to kind of manage in a smoother way. So, how do you set up Categories? Well, you go to admin, Categories. And then over there on the far right of the screenshot, you’ll see enable Categories is turned on. It’s defaulted off for most instances, so make sure you turn it on first. From there, we’re going to set up all the Categories you see in front of you on the screenshot, as well as any number of other Category you may want to enable.
Knowles: Now, once you’ve got everything enabled, it’s all about how do you Categorize the information. So, we’re going to walk through some instructions, some best practices, and then we’ll do some demonstration, of course, here at the end of this section of the slides on how you do all this work. The first thing, like we mentioned, is enabling Categories. You do that through the admin. You assign things to either projects or global within your Jama Connect instance, and then you start utilizing them. One of our best practices here is to manage Categories through logical organizers, so folders, sets, components. That allows you to then click into the list view of that logical organizer and then assign all the Categories to the items within it. You don’t have to do this. This is just one of the more efficient ways, especially if you’re enabling an architecture-forward approach within your database. And of course, you can manage Categories in bulk, otherwise this whole explanation wouldn’t make much sense.
So, some of the tips, tricks, and best practices. Here, we’ve got the managing in bulk. And I’ll show you how to do that live. We’ll view categorized information in the exploratory via a filter, and so we’ve got to set up filters. Of course, those same filters can be exported or sent to reports, and then you can use multiple Categories on the same item. So, if one item is going to be delivered at the first milestone and you want to continue to deliver it at the next milestone, you simply add both Categories to it. And finally, you can always create baselines of everything filtered. So, these filters that we’re going to use to shrink down and narrow down the exploratory are also going to be very, very useful for baselining, for exporting, and for a number of other things.
So, now it’s time to demonstrate some of these best practices. The first things first is enabling Categories. As we discussed earlier, there’s this enable Categories button here on the far right. Once enabled, you’ll be able to add Categories with the add button here. Doing that is as simple as populating a single field with the information and hitting add. I, of course, have the whole system ddevelopment phase added already, and so I want to show you exactly what that looks like, how these things got nested underneath each other, and so on and so forth, by adding an eighth step. So, for today, the webinar phase is what we’re going to add to our development phases here. When we add, it’s going to actually add it at the top level. And so, then we need to drag it down into the system development phase.
We are going to use the move functionality here, as that’s the best practice in this scenario, where the copy Category functionality is better for using this for variant management. Now you can see that the webinar phase has been added to the system development phases. And you can also see that the system development phase is a project Category. This was done by managing access here on the right side, where you can pick the specific projects you’d like this Category to be assigned to. Or if this is something you want globally accessible, you can use the globally accessible button here. When you hit that, you’ll see that it turns orange and has a globe, instead of the project specific icon that you saw originally.
Now let’s look at how we categorize information within the tool. Our screenshots were showing this functions portion of this project, and so we’re going to dive into that to continue the continuity of this example. This specific set here, we’ll view the details of it, and we’ll simply scroll down and manage Categories. So, if we wanted to add that eight system development phase, webinar phase, we’ll simply select it, and click add and it will be added to this set of information. From there, we can bulk edit everything underneath the set by selecting all the items and clicking manage Categories. Same pop-up shows up, and we’re able to add that eighth phase of the lifecycle.
Now, this is really, really fantastic. If we want to go see everything in the eighth phase of the lifecycle, we can select the Categories feature over here. We can expand our system development phase and select webinar phase, where we see the items that were added there, including the set up here, and are able to kind of view this information in the list view. Now, if we wanted to see this in the explorer, we would go to filters and we’re just going to rely on this pre-built one here. And we’re going to right click apply filter to explorer. This is going to show us the information in a more succinct way. And we’ll talk more about this as we go on.
Knowles: Now that we’ve looked at how to enable Categories, we want to talk about how we develop this and deploy this data and these Categories for your collaborative team. I talked a little bit about this and showed you these exact steps here to narrow down your explorer tree, but what really is the benefit here? Well, you can set up a simple filter that’s based on the Category itself and right-click apply that filter to the explorer. This lets teams see just the information they need to care about coming up, especially if your sets, components, and folders are all categorized. This will show a team that, hey, we need to make sure all of the aircraft functions are populated for this coming milestone, because that set is there. Same with the aircraft validations, the requirements, and the plans and assessments.
Each of those logical organizers are categorized, showing the team this is something that is due at the upcoming milestone. The team then will populate information underneath that and they will categorize those items as well to bring them into the overall filter. Now, public filters are just kind of one of the ways we want to see this deployed to the team. We also need to demonstrate to the team how do you bookmark the filters, and how do you even manage Categories in general? So, in the next step here, I’m going to demonstrate managing Categories for single items, as well as a couple other little nuances within the tool that the teams will need to understand as they go ahead and use this in the deployed environment.
When deploying this information to the teams, it’s really critical that you’ve set your filters to be public. A quick way to note if something is public is if it’s got the asterisk next to the name here. You can always right-click and edit your filter and click the make public, and that will denote that it is public to all users using this project. Once your filters are all built out, you’re going to have them there. You’re going to teach your users exactly how to use them, of course, with the apply filter to explore. But also, if they need to send these for a review and get signatures on them or add a baseline, there’s also these features available to them.
And of course, bookmarking is really, really critical. Without it bookmarked, you can see I’m now missing phase one, so I have to go to all, and then go find phase one, and add it to my bookmarks and it’ll now show up in my bookmarked section here. Users most of the time are going to be adding new items to the tool. And so, if we add a new item here, we’re going to populate this new item, a new item for webinar. And that’s going to be our example item here to show that once we’ve saved it, this is when we get to add the Categories. It’s not a field that’s available directly when editing a brand new item. It shows up after the fact here down at the bottom with the managed Categories button.
You’ll then grab the applicable Categories that you want to add to this item, save it, and you’ll see them here. This helps, and it automatically adds things to the filter. You’ll see here that we’ve gone up in the number of items, and our new item for the webinar right here is now part of the filter automatically. Additionally, you can show your users that they can come directly here in the category section to see the same information, just without the filter and without some of those right-click functionalities that you get to see when you’re in the filter section. It’s been fantastic to work with you all today and show off these features in the tool.
