Any recommendations for a requirement tracing tool?

[Keith Hood <klhra -at- yahoo -dot- com>]

Does anyone on the list have any suggestions about
requirement tracing software? I have to write a huge
number of use cases and requirements. I need to track
which topics are covered in which documents. This need
will become critical when the developer documents
start to come in. 

A bit of explanation:  This project is running rather
oddly. Both I and the lead developers are writing use
cases and requirements. 

There is an old application based on MS Access, that
was updated to run in Java. I'm writing use cases and
requirements for that - I'm sort of reverse
engineering the UI, and documenting what I can find
about the features, actions, and relationships. The
only existing document on the app is a paper that
describes the data fields on the screens - 15 pages,
roughly about three lines of text per screen feature.
The guy who originally wrote the app literally just
winged it. So did the guy who rewrote it in Java. 

So rather than writing UCs and FRs as guides to the
design, I'm writing them to archive knowledge of how
the app functions, so future engineers who have to
support and modify the app will have a better idea of
what it does and how it works.

This app is only one part of the project. The
developers are all working on other parts, and those
are still in the early stages of development. They are
either writing UCs and FRs for their parts, or they
have subordinates do the docs and they just
review/edit the docs. Those docs will be used to guide
development, rather than just capture knowledge of the
development results.

I'm not supposed to actually write those docs; I just
sort of oversee their doc production process. I'm the
de facto project document manager. I created blank UC,
FR, and NFR templates for them, and set up procedures
for using those templates. When they reach the point
where they think they have docs done, they send the
docs to me. I make sure they're complete, do whatever
proofing and editing may still be needed, and do some
fact checking in an attempt to backstop some of the
content (check if equations actually add up correctly,
etc.) Then I'm supposed to archive their documents and
provide some kind of indexing/access methods. (I also
have to turn out final versions of the business
requirements and some other things, like user manuals
for this new Java-based app.)

For my actual authoring, I need some way to ensure I
don't spend a lot of time rewriting the same things
when I could simply refer to previous documents. Even
even more, I need to ensure I don't have conflicts -
rewriting something and later finding it doesn't match
what's in a previous document. And for both my docs
and the the developer-authored docs, I need a way
track what data points have been covered in which
documents.

I have an Excel spreadsheet for simple document/file
tracking - versions, file names, storage locations,
and titles - but that won't last long. A spreadsheet
for *content* tracking would become so huge it would
be completely unmanageable. All the entries have to be
done manually. When the developer docs start coming
in, I will quickly reach a point where the non-writing
side of my position (process oversight/doc library
admin) will be a full time job in itself. And I
already know I can't get permission or budget to hire
any assistants. But maybe I can get budget buy a
tracking tool if it's not too expensive. 

By the way, we don't have a test manager. Each
development team is supposed to concoct its own test
plans and schedules. They write their own test scripts
and scenarios. I'm supposed to keep track of their
test docs the same way as keeping track of their
design docs, and I'm supposed to track the connections
between requirements and tests. I hope a test manager
will be appointed later and he'll take over the
business of tracking requirement/test relations, but
that's still up in the air.

The project manager wants everyone to use Excel to
keep track of whatever they think they need tracked.
He knows we all know how to use that, and he's
concerned about time. The project has already been
rebooted once. The previous tech writer had set up
Eventum for management/tracking and Subversion for
versioning. That person is now gone. Nobody else in
the team knows how to use Eventum, and I don't know
how to use Subversion. The manager is concerned with
wasting time trying to learn new software. I didn't
realize there might be a tracking problem until I
started messing with this app and saw how complex it
really is, and realized how many documents must be
generated just for this one small part of the project.

So, any ideas? 

Is there any such thing as a shareware product that
could be used for requirement tracking, or am I
smoking opium on that?

And thanks for reading this. Good luck on your own
jobs.



       
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