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

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

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

Coverage includes

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

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

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