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See how RTTS' team utilized IBM Rational Team Concert, along with Rational Quality Manager and Requirements Composer, to assist a utility company track progress and provide an audit trail for review board approvals. The goal was to have a centralized location where all users could view, update and follow applications as they moved through the migration process.
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Industry
Energy Services
Solution & Services
Managed Testing Services
Mentoring
Tools
IBM Rational Team Concert (RTC)
IBM Rational Quality Manager (RQM)
IBM Rational Requirements Composer (RRC)
CASE STUDY
Managing a
Data Center Migration
with
IBM Rational Team Concert Background
A major utility company had plans to migrate several hundred
applications over to a new data center. The proposed workflow
had each application moving through development and test
environments before going out to production. A review board
had the final say in approving technical documentation and test
results before the transition was considered as "complete".
Challenges
Applications were scheduled for migration to a new data center
in phases. It was necessary to track the progress of these
applications thoroughly, as many of them relied on each other
to function properly. Management wished to review and
approve each of the applications as they moved through the
process to ensure that there was no oversight.
Strategy
Our plan was to develop a customized solution using IBM Rational Team Concert to track progress
and provide an audit trail for review board approvals. The goal was to have a centralized location
where all users could view, update and follow applications as they moved through the migration
process.
Solution
IBM Rational Team Concert (RTC) has many features that help organizations collaborate on their
projects in a simple and efficient manner. Our engineers were able to take a standard RTC project
and tailor it to match the client’s predefined workflow and requirements.
Work items are one of the main elements RTC uses for tracking progress and coordinating tasks
between users (i.e. Stories, Defects, Tasks). The tool gives users the ability to customize these
items, and even create new ones, in order to integrate with an organization’s workflow.
Working through the RTC Eclipse client interface, our engineers created a custom migration work
item to hold all of the necessary information for each individual application as it moved through the
different environments. Some of the custom attributes that were added include: Description Fields,
Parent Workstreams, Application Owners, Technical Points of Contact and Business Owners. This
allowed all members of the organization to search within RTC for pertinent information regarding
each application.
An "Approvals" tab was also added to this work item specifically for board members to record their
approvals. Application owners were able to attach all of the required documentation to the work item,
which was then viewed by each of the board members. This customization and workflow allowed for
a seamless experience between both parties.
All users had to adhere to the defined workflow, so by configuring the roles and permissions within
RTC we were able to ensure that application leads could not bypass the review board in order to
release to the production environment. We carefully constructed permissions to prevent a change in
status unless all board members provided approval. This gave management confidence that there
would be no oversight in any of applications that were using this system.
As part of the migration process, developers needed to make technical services requests to different
teams throughout the organization. This process took place so that the developers could build out
their applications in each environment. We customized a "Task" work item to allow these requests to
easily be forwarded to the proper groups. These Tasks could then be linked back to the "Migration"
work item to allow for complete visibility into the ongoing work for an application. We were able to
further streamline the process by implementing custom JavaScript code to pre-populate the
description field based on the type of Task requested.
RTC offers the ability to display project information via dashboard widgets. These widgets can
display charts and lists of work items so that, at a glance, users can see the overall progress being
made for the project. It also serves as a place where users can go to find out about their pending
tasks. We created “My Work” widgets to display outstanding work items based on a user’s role.
Agendas for the review boards were automatically populated under the "Review Board" dashboard
(Previously, the review boards would communicate via email and review documentation from a
shared drive). The creation of the "Review Board" dashboard allowed for “two-click” navigation to all
necessary information. Having everything that was required for approval in one place helped to
greatly improve the efficiency of the review process.
If there was a need to discuss any conflicts with the applications documentation or schedule it was
easily managed by using the comments section in RTC. Much of the back and forth dialogue took up
an excessive amount of time during the Review Board meetings. Teams now have these
discussions virtually, prior to the meetings, in RTC. Review Board meeting times were reduced from
hours to just minutes.
After the project area was configured and released to users, RTTS was able to mentor several client
resources so that they could step into the administrator role. Providing guidance and documentation
on how to manage the projects going forward was an important step in setting them up for success
in using the tool. We left the client capable of applying the framework used in the migration project to
other projects that may need customization and tracking in the future.
Benefits
Streamlined the review process by allowing Board members “two-click” navigation to their review material
via RTC dashboard widgets.
Reduced the amount of time spent in Review Board meeting from hours to minutes. All of the preliminary
discussions and documentation review now take place within RTC.
Enabled visibility into the progress of individual tasks associated with each application as well as the
project as a whole.
Provided an audit trail for all activity associated with the applications to be migrated.
Mentored client resources in both using and administering the tool so that they can grow as new projects
arise.
RTTS is an IBM Premier Partner. Since 1996, RTTS has been an education & consulting partner
with IBM – implementing solutions and providing educational services around IBM’s Rational
Software testing tools. RTTS has worked with the Rational team to develop top-notch solutions
around their excellent toolset.
For more information about our solutions and services, go to www.rttsweb.com
copyright Real-Time Technology Solutions, Inc. 2014