Product development with advanced analytics: Jama buys Notion

Jama is a software for product development with a focus on requirements and test management. I have been working intensively with Jama for the last year, as I am a freelancer for Jama. Last year I attended the Modern RE gave a lecture on Jama, and I will be giving two presentations at this year's ReConf, one of them to Jama.

The reason for today's article is the Acquisition of Notion by Jama. Why this acquisition makes sense and why similar acquisitions and mergers are becoming more common is discussed below.

Not too long ago, I reported on a purchase relevant to systems engineering, the Acquisition of No Magic by Dassault Systèmes. The implications in this case were much more drastic, as No Magic was much larger than Notion and there are not too many MBSE tools on the market. In this respect, it is not comparable with the acquisition of Notion. However, the underlying motivation is similar: the aim is to cover as much of the value chain as possible. More on this in a moment.

Business Intelligence

But first to Notion and Jama. While Jama is a software for product development, Notion is a platform for business intelligence. Notion has recognized that many tools, such as Jama or Jira, have useful reporting, but business intelligence (BI) goes far beyond regular reporting. Instead of starting with the data and deriving reports from it, the question is first formulated and then the data required to answer it is collected. This prevents analyses and reports from becoming an end in themselves.

Only formulating the question prevents analyses from becoming an end in themselves [tweetthis]Only formulating the question prevents analyses from becoming an end in themselves[/tweetthis]

Interlocking or integrating?

So far, Jama has relied on interlocking with other tools in many areas. This is an approach that I prefer. I have simply seen too many "egg-laying woolly milk sows" that did not have enough flexibility, or a weak component that cannot be replaced. The integration of different tools reduces the risk because, in an emergency, one tool can be replaced relatively cleanly by another. On the other hand, integration is rarely as seamless as integrated software.

In the case of Notion, it is obvious that the existing analysis tools can be developed even faster with Notion - this is also explicitly stated in the press release. Notion can draw on data from many data sources. I therefore doubt that Notion will be firmly integrated into Jama even after the integration.

Innovations from technology to business

What strikes me, and what we will certainly see more and more of, is the transfer of ideas from technology that are slowly but surely being adopted into business. There are many examples of this: Bug tracking is being used for customer service; agile methods that first became big in software development are now being used for product definition. It is similar with business intelligence: engineers are often obsessed with metrics and automation, and also have the opportunity to implement them themselves.

The pressure is growing

In addition, the pressure on companies to perform is enormous and new solutions are being sought because the old approaches do not scale forever. Management is feeling the pressure even more than the workforce. Hence the great interest in business intelligence. The hope is to find problems at an early stage and thus reduce risks and increase the chances of success.

But even the best tools only help in the right hands. Therefore, despite all the technology, the human factor should not be underestimated.