A few weeks ago, Electronic Design posted an article about how OSLC principles help development teams share, analyze, find, and review design information while also improving how they collaborate and communicate.
The design information from multiple sources can be linked together using the OSLC. Links from design elements to requirements, test plans, test cases, project plans, and tasks are possible. Links are not restricted to a single tool but can go to any tool supporting the OSLC standard and also web pages. Additionally, the links can be typed to specify the nature of the relationship between the elements. For example, links can be created tracing requirements to a use case that elaborates the requirement. A link of type “satisfies” could be created from the use case to a state diagram that shows the modes of operation that will implement the use case. This makes it possible to navigate the design artifacts similar to navigating links on web pages allowing the teams to gain a better understanding of the overall architect and the interrelations of the various design components.