How to Leverage Test Runs with Variant Management, Release Management, and Product Line Engineering

Published Date: October 23, 2025
Audience: Everyone
Products and Versions Covered:

Jama Connect®

Use Case

When reusing Jama projects for release management, variant management, and product line engineering use cases, what is the best practice for leveraging past testing, since test runs are not included in the project duplication?

Best Practice

Some teams use a product line engineering strategy where there is a first version of a product, and then subsequent versions are developed largely based on the original version. In the new product versions, some of the requirements, test cases, and test results are leveraged from the original version. (For example, the injectable volume of the pen injector may be changing, but the needle safety system will remain the same and will be leveraged.)

In this case, one approach used to create new product variants in Jama Connect is duplicating the original product project and modifying the new version of the product in its own Jama project. When duplicating a project in Jama Connect®, the items in the explorer tree are copied, but the test center items, like test plans and test runs, are not included in the project duplicate.

Therefore, it is recommended that when leveraging prior test cases, a dedicated testing project is created, where all the test cases are written and executed, and where the test plans and test runs reside. This allows users to make cross-project relationships from the unique product version projects to the test project and allows for easy leveraging of test results from prior testing.

Implementation

Create 2 initial projects: 1 for product development (design inputs, design outputs, risk, etc.) and 1 to house test cases and test execution items.
Create user needs, requirements, risk items, etc. in the product development project.
Create test cases in the dedicated testing project.
Trace requirements from the product development project to test cases in the dedicated testing project.
When ready, execute testing in the testing project.
When a new product variant is needed, either duplicate the product development project or reuse the relevant requirements sets from the original product development project into a new product variant project.
In the new product variant project, where prior test cases are being leveraged, trace to the existing test case in the dedicated testing project. Where new test cases are needed, create a new test case in the dedicated testing project and trace to it.

Alternate Approach

A similar approach can be used where all test cases are housed in the original product development project, and any leveraged test cases in other variant projects will have cross-project relationships from requirements in the variant project to test cases in the original development project.

For any new-variant-specific test cases, they can be made in the variant-specific project.

The idea of cross-project relationships to wherever the test case and execution are still holds true.

Additional Resources

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