Preparing for a Successful Rollout of Jama Connect®

Author: Zeb Geary
Updated: August 2025
Audience: Everyone
Products Applicable:
Jama Connect® | Jama Connect Interchange™ | Jama Connect Advisor™

Preparing for a Successful Rollout of Jama Connect®

Welcome to Jama Software®, and congratulations on your investment in modern requirements management! You’re not alone—we’re here to support you as you onboard your teams and begin leveraging Jama Connect® to its full potential.

Our onboarding experts have outlined key activities to help you successfully roll out your project. While each is worth considering, the level of detail needed will depend on the size and scope of your deployment.

Implementation

Define Business Outcomes

Start by identifying and documenting the critical business outcomes you aim to achieve with Jama Connect. This includes key challenges you're addressing and opportunities for improvement. Outcomes should be concrete, measurable, and meaningful.

Consider aligning on the following:

Current Challenges and their negative business impacts
Future State Goals and the positive outcomes if those goals are met
Key Capabilities required to achieve those outcomes
Success Metrics to track progress and impact

People, Process, and Data

Jama Connect is a solution that supports and enables your process—but it’s not a process in itself. Identify your current process (even if loosely defined) and outline how you want it to evolve. Then, determine:

Who will engage with Jama Connect (internal and external stakeholders)
What processes will change
Which data will be captured, and how it will be used

Include input from teams across the product lifecycle: strategy, planning, development, testing, and go-to-market.

Decision-Making

Identify and capture who should be involved in informing and making decisions about the approach and design for using Jama Connect.

Decisions, which carry significant weight, include things like:

Clearly define who will make decisions around your implementation and ongoing use of Jama Connect. These decisions may include:
Formal vs. informal collaboration (e.g., review and approval workflows)
Process changes needed to leverage Jama Connect capabilities
Naming conventions and standards
Integration rules and what data should or should not be synced
How project structures and data organization should be designed

Key Roles and Responsibilities

Roles	Responsibilities
Implementation Lead	The Implementation Project Lead is responsible for managing the overall deployment of Jama Connect within the organization. This individual should be able to understand your internal processes and be a strong supporter of incorporating Jama Connect into these processes. Responsibilities include coordinating resources, scheduling and presiding over meetings, communicating and facilitating decisions, and informing Jama Software of issues or concerns. The Implementation Lead should have the authority to make project-level decisions.
Sponsor	The Business/Executive Sponsor is accountable for the success of Jama Connect within the organization and has the authority to implement recommended process changes that may arise during this project. The primary role of the Business/Executive Sponsor is to ensure that the implementation and deployment of Jama aligns with the organization’s strategic goals and business objectives.
Subject Matter Experts	In addition to the Project Lead, the Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) will define how Jama Connect will be used in your organization. SMEs are those in your organization who understand the overall processes and goals for implementation while serving as empowered representatives of the different teams that will use Jama Connect. These team members should be able to dedicate time to the effort and have the support of their management team, especially in the early phase of deployment.
Jama Connect Administrator	The Jama Connect Administrator (preferably more than one) is responsible for learning how to configure your instance of Jama Connect using the administrative functions and will be accountable for the ongoing configuration and administration of Jama Connect. They will become super-users within the organization who can support other users, understand the impact of modifications to the system configuration, and implement configuration changes as appropriate. This role does not need to be technical - all administration happens within the Jama Connect user interface. Often, it is helpful for the Administrator to be close to the business process to understand how changes to Jama configuration will impact processes.
Integration Hub Administrator	If Jama Connect is integrated with another tool using a 3rd-party integration solution, the Integration Hub Administrator will manage the configuration of the integration tool.
Administrator for Integrated System	If Jama Connect is integrated with another tool, the Integrated System Administrator will be responsible for understanding the impact of configuration requests supporting the integration and can implement the configuration request.
IT/System Administrator	For organizations installing Jama Connect in a self-hosted environment (i.e., not Cloud-hosted by Jama Software), the IT/System Administrator(s) are responsible for the initial installation, system setup, and ongoing system administration of Jama Connect.

Assessing Impact

Be prepared to communicate how Jama Connect will improve day-to-day work for users. Use a change management approach to:

Communicate early and clearly
Gain buy-in
Reinforce individual success as part of organizational success

Connect these benefits to the positive business outcomes identified earlier.

Project Planning

Develop a high-level project plan that outlines:

Deployment approach
Initial project(s)
Timeline
Resource needs
Stakeholder buy-in

Communication

Generate excitement and build awareness with a clear communication strategy:

Explain the what, why, and when
Tailor messaging for different stakeholder groups
Celebrate milestones and progress

Training

Consider how your teams learn best (e.g., classroom vs. self-paced, formal vs. informal). Establish:

Role-based training plans
Resources for onboarding new users
Access to Jama Software's Onboarding Jama Connect® course (Community Membership required) Register for Community Membership.

Support

Plan for ongoing user support, including:

How users will get help (internally or through Jama Software Support)
How administrative tasks (e.g., permissions, user setup) will be handled
Promoting Jama’s Community for peer-to-peer assistance and best practices

System Readiness

Ensure your system environment is ready for your expected usage:

Cloud vs. self-hosted setup
Resources allocated for maintenance, updates, and administration
Integration plans and access to administrators for connected systems

Helpful References

Please feel free to leave feedback in the comments below.

Preparing for a Successful Rollout of Jama Connect®