Implementation of Rational Tools: A Global Fortune 50 Financial Institution

The Client

Deutsche Bank

The Challenge

The Solution

Wability recommended using a range of Rational development tools, including tools for requirements management, issue and change tracking, business modeling, test management, and automated testing. In addition, project teams also relied on the Rational Unified Process to provide guidance on how to apply the tools throughout the development process.

The Benefit

The selection of Rational tools enabled the development team to make more informed decisions based on comprehensive, quantifiable project information from requirements to defects. Combined with improvements in efficiency, this capability helped the team improve quality and deliver the first complete project using IBM Rational tools on time and more than 30 percent under budget.

As a leader in the Financial Services market, Deutsche Bank is committed to providing ongoing flexibility and choices in financial solutions as well as choice of Investments. The Bank’s software technology development group, which comprises more than 180 project managers, business analysts, developers and testers, plays a key role in delivering on that commitment.

The Tools

Seizing the opportunity to increase operational efficiency, Deutsche Bank adopted a broad range of tools from IBM/Rational, including:

• Rational RequisitePro for requirements management

• Rational Rose Enterprise for visual modeling of business processes

• Rational ClearQuest for defect tracking and workflow management

• Rational TestManager for management of test plans and assets

• Rational Robot for automated functional and regression testing

• The development team also used Rational Unified Process, or RUP, to complement its established software development process by providing how-to guidance for development activities throughout the project.

Requirements Analysis

Wability helped to roll out Rational tools at the bank using an adoption through execution strategy. In this approach, a small team of trained consultants served as Requirements Manager and Test Manager on new projects, and provided mentoring for both process and tools as they helped out on the project. Requirements Management was centralized using Rational RequisitePro, and that gave the Bank the ability not only to control requirements, but to institute a management process as well.

Business Modeling

Before adopting Rational Rose Enterprise, business analysts at Deutsche Bank used diagramming software, which limited their ability to create accurate models of business processes. Wability used UML to better visualize the processes. Unlike a flowchart, UML gave a broader and richer picture of what the process is going to be from the top down. They were able to go from identifying actors and processes down to activities. Modeling business processes and use cases using Rational Rose Enterprise provided an effective way of clearly Communicate all business needs to the rest of the Bank’s business community and the development team.

System Testing

Tracking defects and other issues was key to project management at Deutsche Bank. Rational ClearQuest enabled test and project managers to assess project status and get detailed information on individual problem reports. It also provided a clear channel of communication between testers and developers. With a clear view of defect status, the team was ultimately able to deliver higher quality software more consistently. Rational ClearQuest provided a view of that data that they did not have before. That information has enabled better planning and better monitoring of project deliveries. It helped to communicate the real status of the project defects.

Distributed Development

With development team spread across the US, Europe and Brazil, Deutsche Bank used Rational tools to enable effective geographically distributed development. Development teams had Web browser access to requirements in Rational RequisitePro and defects in Rational ClearQuest, which ensured that everyone on the team had convenient, secure access to the same, up to date project information. The Web interfaces allowed having the same information everywhere.

Workflow Management

Apart from using IBM Rational ClearQuest as a software development tool, Deutsche Bank has also used it to create two customized workflow management solutions for its eCommerce and Asset Management departments. These applications enabled the Bank to replace manual processes with automated ones and to meet compliance requirements.

Managing the Test Process

When Deutsche Bank added the role of Requirements Manager for their projects they also added the role of Test Manager. Within the Bank’s development organization, the Test Manager was ultimately responsible for the quality of the delivered application, and the management of the master test plan including testing resources, and the entire test management process. Rational TestManager helped managing all test scripts, and provided test coverage metrics. The testing team also used Rational ClearQuest to understand and track all the information for each defect found.

Automated Testing

In a test environment that included mainframe systems, Microsoft .NET, Visual Basic and Citrix, testers at Deutsche Bank depended on Rational Robot to create automated test scripts for a wide range of front ends. Rational Robot was used to help to free testers to spend more time on difficult tests by automating many of the most tedious and repetitive testing chores

Conclusion