Developing Client Centered and Result Oriented Products: Modern Requirements

“The official Microsoft go-to-solution for Requirements Management.”

Modern Requirements was launched over a decade ago as a Requirements Management solutions company dedicated to extending and complementing Microsoft’s Visual Studio platform. Its initial product was inteGREAT Studio which was a desktop application that automated much of requirements analysis and test artifact generation. Driven by client requests this later evolved into SmartOffice4TFS, a set of plug-ins for the Microsoft Office application. The most recent stage has been
the development of inteGREAT4TFS, a web-based extension to Microsoft Team Foundation Server. Cumulatively SmartOffice4TFS and inteGREAT4TFS are currently being marketed as the Modern Requirements Suite4TFS. Over the last few years Modern Requirements has established itself as Microsoft’s go-to solution for Requirements Management.

Three things that make Modern Requirements unique:

• Instead of being a full standalone solution, the Modern Requirements Suite4TFS is natively based on the Microsoft’s Visual Studio Team Foundation Server or VSTS platform. This translates into end to end ALM traceability with less administrative overhead.
• Having both full Office Extensions, as well as a full web-based solution, provides users with some unique flexibility in interfacing with this leading requirements management suite, with a quick adoption curve.
• Its significant R&D reinvestment, combined with that of Microsoft in the ALM & Dev OPS space, provides clients with the most fully featured requirements solution available and the fastest innovation velocity in the requirements tool marketplace.

Powerful features, Simply designed

inteGREAT4TFS: It is a requirement management software application that has six modules, Simulation4TFS, Traceability4TFS, ReviewManagement4TFS, Use Case Editor4TFS, Baseline4TFS and SmartOffice Library. This web based application supports the user to manage project requirements visually, view & create traceability files and present them in a team project. Moreover, it allows the user to create, edit, view and compare baselines. It provides a platform to host company data and present it in a way that would make it more accessible and effective to all users across an organization. It is a requirement management tool that extends the visualization, auditing and reporting capabilities of TFS and VSTS.

SmartOffice4TFS: It is a simple yet powerful set of plug-ins for Microsoft Office. It is the foundational component of the Modern Requirements management tool suite that helps development teams to be more efficient when creating TFS work items from within Microsoft Word or Excel documents, Microsoft Visio diagrams and Microsoft Outlook e-mails. Moreover, users can generate traceability matrices from Microsoft Excel. SmartOffice4TFS provides many familiar options for development teams when gathering requirements and creating software specs, using Microsoft products, and connecting those documents to Team Projects. SmartOffice4TFS suite includes SmartWord4TFS, SmartVisio4TFS, SmartExcel4TFS and
SmartOutlook4TFS.

It’s all about customers anyway!
Organizations who face regulatory or compliance issues benefit the most from using this software, including Medical Device
companies, Financial Services and Government. However, any type of organization that builds and maintains complex products can achieve ALM process efficiencies from this solution. Some of its large clients include: Siemens, Varian, Becton Dickinson, Freddie Mac, The FBI, Microsoft and Comerica Bank. Talking about its future focus, the company focuses developing on knowledge automation and mining, in an unstructured content space for requirements management.

Case study of a happy client: Fish & Richardson
Fish & Richardson, named #1 patent litigation firm in the United States for the past 12 consecutive years, is a global patent, intellectual property litigation, and commercial litigation firm. It has been winning cases worth billions in controversy -often by making new law -for the most innovative clients and influential industry leaders since 1878. The firm’s early clients included the Wright Brothers, Alexander Graham Bell, and Thomas Edison.

Situation: Fish & Richardson wanted to streamline their requirements definition process to manage and prioritize requirements. The development team needed a repeatable process for gathering requirements to support their Scrum practices and a simplified collaboration/approval process between the business and IT.

Solution: The Modern Requirements Suite provided Fish & Richardson with an efficient, easy to learn approach for defining and prioritizing business requirements and subsequently dividing them in Sprints with User Stories. Using SmartOffice4TFS documents & diagrams, the information was in constant sync with IT’s requirements data base. The solution improved collaboration and simplified the way stakeholders reviewed, discussed, and approved requirements. The suite leverages Microsoft’s Team Foundation Server or Visual Studio Team Services (VSTS) as its requirements database and provides users with a single source of truth, while ensuring complete requirements coverage and traceability.

Benefits: Requirements productivity improved by 30%. The firm now has a repeatable, consistent process resulting in improved project quality. Using Microsoft Office plug-ins considerably mitigated disruption and product adoption was seamless.

Meet the Master Duo

Asif Sharif, Chief Technologist : Asif an Information Technology industry veteran, serves as the Chief Technologist of eDev Technologies where his leadership and experience drive the company’s corporate vision and business strategy. Prior to founding eDev (now Modern Requirements), Mr. Sharif spent nine years as the Director of Research and Development for Ajilon Consulting. There he was known as an innovator, spearheading multi-million-dollar business solutions for Fortune 1000 companies.

His passion for knowledge engineering and collaboration has contributed to the successful development of inteGREAT and SmartOffice4TFS, Modern Requirements’ award-winning anchor products. In starting the company, Mr. Sharif capitalized on his natural enthusiasm and business acumen which have translated into rapid growth.

Bob Savelson, SVP of Sales & Marketing: Bob, who has extensive ALM and requirements management experience, has held this role at Modern Requirements since 2010. He has a track record of creating client value through listening, problem solving and meticulous execution.

“Our clients generally report back to us anywhere between 30-50% productivity improvements in their requirements practice.”