Changes, Defects & Issues

In the course of your team's work on a model, changes and issues can arise at a number of levels, for problems that apply system-wide through areas of the model and down to within a specific element. A Change, very broadly, defines an addition or alteration to a requirement, whilst an Issue identifies either a failure to meet a requirement, or a risk in meeting the requirement.

There are two mechanisms that can be used to identify a change or issue, and the work required to resolve it:

• Change and Issue (or Defect) elements - structured comments that identify a problem at system-level, although they can also be attached to a specific element from which a problem arises; both types of element can be linked by relationships such as Association, Dependency and Realize to one or more other elements that have to be reviewed, and for complex problems can form hierarchies or groups

• Maintenance items - properties raised against a specific element and recorded for that element in the Maintenance window; these provide a distinction between Defects (a failure to meet a requirement) and Issues (a risk factor that might affect satisfying the requirement) and also include Tasks, which record work items associated with the element
  Maintenance items are very specific, but if an item begins to have a wider impact on other elements or the system in general, you can translate that item into a Change, Issue, or any other type of element that best identifies the problem and its solution

Maintenance items are defects, changes, issues, tasks, features and documents that apply at the model element level. They are properties of individual model elements that can be used to record and capture problems, changes, issues and tasks as they arise, and document the solution and associated details.

Maintenance Tasks