We are pleased to announce Beta 1 of the Rational Workbench for Collaborative Lifecycle Management. This project is an evolution of our Collaborative ALM effort focused on bringing together software development activities across requirements, development, build, and test. Our goal with the Workbench is to improve collaboration and productivity for teams using joint deployments of Rational Team Concert, Rational Quality Manager, and a new requirements management product provisionally called Rational DOORS Requirements Professional.

How do I download the workbench?

Because the workbench products (Rational Team Concert, Rational Quality Manager, and Rational DOORS Requirements Professional) are built on a common set of services, when you download one of them, you get the capabilities of all three. On the jazz.net downloads page, follow one of the links to download 3.0 M7a (Beta 1):

• Rational Team Concert 3.0 M7a (Beta 1)
• Rational Quality Manager 3.0 M7a (Beta 1)
• Rational DOORS Requirements Professional 3.0 M7a (Beta 1)

Installing the server for any of those trials will allow you to install the capabilities for all three products.

What is the Workbench for?

The Workbench is designed to:

• Support the needs of skilled practitioners while coordinating overall team process and workflow
• Reduce project risk by providing end-to-end traceability of ALM artifacts
• Work the way you want with infinitely extensible dashboards that summarize project status at the right level of detail
• Speed deployment and reduce administration costs through flexible deployment options, simplified licensing and enhanced security.

Why is this important?

The activities involving requirements, development, build and test are not process silos. Integrating these disciplines through process automation, links between artifacts, and reporting across these links improves the productivity of teams while also increasing the quality of their deliverables.

We encourage you to try one, two, or all three products, kick the tires, and let us know what works and how we can do better.

Adrian Cho
Development Manager, Rational Workbench for Collaborative Lifecycle Management and Rational Team Concert