Let’s agree on this – managing software requirements is a significant undertaking.
As the project manager, you have to collect, analyze, document, and track various requirements throughout the development lifecycle. It is a tedious task, yet a tricky one. You don’t want to create poorly defined requirements – they can result in project delays, cost overruns, and poor-quality products.
So, how do you avoid these headaches and ensure that the product you’ve developing aligns with the requirements? Simple – you should use requirements management tools.
🚀 We’d love to learn more about your team and the challenges in your current workflow. Let’s chat!
What Is a Requirements Management Tool?
A requirements management tool is any software that helps you collect, analyze, document, prioritize and track product requirements. It ensures engineering teams understand all the factors shaping product development and helps them track changes and connect with team members.
Tools for requirements management can be as simple as Excel spreadsheets or Google Docs. However, tracking changes with these tools can be tedious, confusing, and time-consuming. They rely on manual updates and lead to version control issues when utilized by different teams. Using sophisticated requirements management software facilitates a more organized approach.
Important Features of a Requirements Management Tool
The appropriate requirements management tool for your engineering team depends on various factors, including budgets, project size, and team members’ preferred methodologies. However, there are crucial features you need to prioritize. These are:
Set & Track Requirements Easily
As products go through the development process, different decisions impact product requirements. For example, a new government regulation mandating added customer privacy protection affects system requirements.
Requirements solutions for software products come with automated traceability that tracks requirements across the development cycle – design, testing, support, etc. They provide visibility to every activity around requirements, minimizing errors and maximizing efficiency.
With the Tara requirements management tool, for example, tracking is visual, making it easy to know the status of each task.
Streamlined Requirements Workflow
Every team has workflow processes in place, whether deliberately or organically structured. Workflow refers to a series of repeatable tasks performed in a specific way from project conception to completion. Streamlining workflow simplifies the workflow process by re-organizing tasks or eliminating unnecessary steps.
Requirements management tools streamline workflows with templates that outline what to do, when to do it, and who does it. Visualization features like labeling allow scrum masters to create and specify tasks based on their type, status, and priority.
Team Collaboration Features
Like great sprint planning tools, Requirements management tools must have collaborative functions like chat, comments, and email sharing. Collaboration is an essential component of the development cycle, especially with the rise of remote and hybrid work environments. It is critical during the elicitation phase.
Elicitation is the practice of collecting and analyzing requirements from developers, customers, and other stakeholders. When developers work in isolation, they may design features that don’t align with stakeholders’ or users’ expectations. Or, when testing engineers create test designs in isolation, they might miss important insights.
Collaborating between teams ensures a better understanding of requirements, resulting in efficient project delivery.
The image above is an example of @mentions. They are a way of notifying teammates and bringing attention to a specific issue regarding a requirement or task. When tagged, the mentioned colleague receives a notification.
Integrations & Smart AI Features
Every team has its preferred way of working. Within the same project, different groups will use various software to complete tasks. The problem with software developers and test engineers using separate tools is that it’s inefficient, costly, and error-prone. Integrations allow each team to use its solution of choice while ensuring a flow of information.
Requirements management tools with artificial intelligence go further than regular integrations, where system compatibility issues can be a limitation. Smart AI can translate between software with different system architectures.
Effective integrations reduce time wasted on status calls or emails and eliminate duplicated entries. The flow of information between teams is timely and transparent.
Best Requirements Management Tools
There are many requirements management products in the market. Knowing which one to choose for your project can be a challenge. So, we’ve curated a list of 10 of the best requirement management tools available. These offer requirements tracking, streamlined workflows, collaborative tools, and integrations. Let’s see what else they have to offer.
1. Tara
Tara is a product delivery platform that helps software teams define, plan, and manage products across the project lifecycle. The software offers automation features to help teams reduce manual tasks, predict project workload, set recurring weekly or biweekly sprints, and generate weekly reports automatically.
With Tara you can write technical specs, define product requirements, and set priorities for your engineering teams. Its powerful multi-player editor allows multiple team members to collaborate simultaneously on the same doc. You can easily share information with your team members, attach files and images, coordinate releases, and track every step of the software development process.
Other features include
- Requirements prioritization with drag and drop features
- Agile environment for customizable processes
- Integration with GitHub, Slack, Trello, and Asana
Tara is available in four affordable pricing models depending on company size: Freemium, Premium, Co-Pilot, and Enterprise.
Key takeaway: Tara is great for accelerating the development process and decreasing time-to-market. And yes, this is our tool, but we’re not just blowing our own trumpet here. More than 4,000 high-performance teams use Tara to manage requirements and sprints. From defining requirements and planning sprints to tracking progress, these teams rely on Tara to Git Ship Done.
2. CodeBeamer
CodeBeamer is a fully integrated application lifecycle management (ALM) solution for advanced product and software engineering. With software development, requirements management, quality assurance testing, and DevOps support in a single repository, it is a tool built for collaboration, efficiency, and regulatory compliance.
CodeBeamer’s standout feature is its open architecture that connects requirements data across all integrated tools. This ensures end-to-end traceability, including requirements dependencies.
Other features include:
- Automated requirement gathering with approval and validation processes
- Enhanced collaboration tools with enforced approval
- Requirements-based testing
Unfortunately, CodeBeamer prices are only available on request. But there is a 30-day free trial.
Key takeaway: CodeBeamer works best for large-scale, enterprise engineering teams in highly regulated industries like the automotive or medical device fields.
3. Jama Software
Jama Software is an ALM tool that highlights collaboration. Centralized requirements mean teams can create, review, validate and verify requirements from a single source.
Jama’s standout feature is live traceability. It connects software teams across different system tools, identifying gaps and misalignments to avoid reworks and delays.
Other features include:
- Requirements mapping
- Real-time impact analysis
- Requirements-based testing
Pricing is available upon request, and there’s a 30-day free trial.
Key takeaway: Jama connects siloed development, testing, and risk assessment processes, creating better alignment between development stakeholders and reducing rework.
4. Jira
Atlassian’s Jira is one of the top software development solutions on the market due to its agile environment. It has ready-made templates you can customize to suit your entire team’s methodology.
One of the Jira’s best features is its mapping tool. With the progress bars, you can see the status of specific tasks and their dependencies at a glance.
Other features include:
- Requirements prioritization
- Customizable templates and workflows
- Integration with thousands of apps on the Atlassian Marketplace
Jira has four pricing models: Freemium (for up to 10 users), Standard, Premium, and Enterprise.
Key takeaway: Jira is the tool of choice for creating and managing requirements in agile projects. Its integration with many software tools and highly customizable features enable teams of all types to use it.
5. Xebrio
Xebrio is an all-in-one project management solution that walks startups, non-profits, and small teams through a project’s lifecycle from requirements to product release. It manages requirements, tasks, tests, and bug tracking on one system for end-to-end traceability.
Other features include:
- Approval workflow
- Bug tracking
- Real-time requirement tracking
Xebrio offers four pricing plans: Task Management, Requirements Management, Requirements & Test Coverage, and Enterprise/On-premise. There is a 14-day free trial and discount pricing for teams with 11-50 users.
Key takeaway: Xebrio is ideal for small companies and teams looking to foster strong collaboration.
6. Visure
Visure is a comprehensive requirements solution for aerospace, automatic, medical device, and software development engineers. The software integrates risk management, test management, change management, and defect tracking in the same environment.
Using natural language processing, Visure reduces the number of poorly written or ambiguous requirements. Other features include:
- Multiple software development support including Agile, Waterfall, and V-model.
- Role-based permissions
- Requirements gathering, analysis, verification, and reuse
Visure offers cloud-based and on-premise licenses. Pricing and demos are available upon request, and there is a 30-day free trial.
Key takeaway: Visure is a powerful tool for complex products that require end-to-end requirements traceability and standard compliance. It also works well for teams with different project methodologies.
7. ReqSuite
ReqSuite is an intuitive and fully customizable requirements management tool geared toward simplicity and efficiency. It offers AI assistance for process management and quality, ensuring teams have high-quality, complete, and consistent requirements.
ReqSuite supports automated workflows that standardize and simplify the requirements handling process.
Other features include:
- Versions management
- AI-assisted requirements elicitation, description, and verification
- Access controlled collaborative tools
ReqSuite is one of the more expensive tools on this list, with prices starting at around €129 for three users. It does offer a free trial, though.
Key takeaway: Reqsuite is a highly customizable requirements management solution, making it suitable for companies of all sizes and all industries. Built for efficiency and simplicity, Reqsuite is easy to set up and use.
8. SpiraTeam
SpiraTeam is an integrated platform for requirements and quality assessment. It is part of Inflectra’s comprehensive solution suite for software managers, developers, and testers.
SpiraTeam has an integrated environment that manages the entire project lifecycle in one ecosystem. It also supports real-time collaboration.
SpiraTeam offers flexible price points depending on the number of users. The price for cloud access ranges from $144.99 per month for three users to $7,405.99 per month for 500 users. You can also download the software.
Key takeaway: SpiraTeam is ideal if you are looking for flexibility. The software adapts to agile teams’ preferred methodology. The integrated IDE allows developers to access requirements from the developer platform, and pricing is adjustable according to resource needs.
9. Orcanos
Orcanos is a requirement management software for the medical industry, specifically medical device manufacturers. It provides integrated design control, quality assurance, and regulatory compliance solutions.
Orcanos offers a single data repository for compliance and quality management requirements. This allows companies to manage risks, tests, and change from one place.
Other features include:
- Automated defect alerts and impact analysis reports
- Standard compliance with US and EU government regulations
- Real-time collaboration
The service offers three pricing models based on your needs: Application Lifecycle Management (Design Control), Quality Management Systems (QMS), and Premium (ALM and QMS). Prices are $990 per month for the ALM and QMS modules and $1,250 per month for the premium module.
Key takeaway: The Orcanos requirements tool simplifies requirements tracking for medical device manufacturers, integrating design control, quality management, and regulatory compliance.
10. Accompa
Accompa is a cloud-based requirements management software for distributed teams. Hailed as the number one cloud-based solution for requirements management, Accompa is easy to use. Many of their customers cite this as the number reason for choosing it over other requirements tools.
Other features include:
- A central repository for storing and managing requirements
- Automated requirement elicitation using intelligent forms and emails
- Requirements prioritization based on ROI
The organization offers three pricing models based on company size: Enterprise, Corporate, and Standard.
Key takeaway: Accompa is a decent requirements management tool if you want ease of use and friendly pricing. Because it is cloud-based, you don’t need to download or install anything, and teams have access from anywhere in the world.
Conclusion
Managing requirements through the development lifecycle is a complex process. Missing or ill-defined requirements have costly consequences. That’s why requirements management tools with automation features, end-to-end tracking, streamlined workflow, collaborative tools, and integrations are crucial.
So, what’s the best requirements management solution for engineering teams? We highlighted ten of them – Tara, CodeBeamer, Jama Software, Jira, Xebrio, Visure, ReqSuite, SpiraTeam, Orcanos, and Accompa.
We ranked Tara AI number one because it helps engineering teams meet increasingly shorter release cycles. With the help of automation, companies stay competitive by giving customers working solutions sooner rather than later. It is one of the more affordable options, and best of all, it’s free to start.
But don’t just take our word. It is important to compare your needs against all the factors that make a great requirements management tool. Hopefully, this article will be a helpful resource as you choose the right tool for your business needs. Good luck!