Right about the time I was trying to sort through the recent DM tussle, I also happened to be talking to Dassault about their new Hierarchical Defect Management capability in order to understand what the “hierarchical” bit was all about.

This is a new feature targeted for large enterprises that have multiple teams on multiple projects around the world. If such a company is efficient, then they’ll be sharing and re-using a lot of their internal code. The flip side of that is that, when a bug is found, it may have spread throughout the organization like mold through bread.

The hierarchical capability allows a company to keep track of this. Once they’ve determined the version where the bug was introduced (which may be earlier than the version where it was found) , they can then trace up and down the hierarchy to propagate the necessary actions through parent/child relationships, but also across (and then up/down) to different projects and products.

You can link with a CRM system to determine which customers may have received a product with the defect if it ended up being shipped. It can also tie into their supply chain management tool if there are implications on upstream supplies.

All in all, the intent is to take a more holistic view of the impact of a defect not just for a project, but across the enterprise.