Issue tracking and management is a key factor in any successful project, as the earlier issues are flagged and seen, the earlier they can be dealt with, and the quicker the project can get back on track.
A continually successful way of ensuring this happens is by implementing an enterprise-wide issue management platform, as this will facilitate the automatic finding and monitoring of defects, quality checks, tasks, requests for advanced features, and support tickets from a range of departments, locations and even organisations.
What is important to remember is that the implementation of an issue management platform is not just confined to the Software Development team.
Participation is required from clients, partners, supplier and any other relevant departments and organisations, and during the early stages of implementation a large number of organisations work under guidance with regards to workflows, user access and metadata (often viewed as the most complex aspects).
The reason behind this is that by investing extra time and resource during the initial implementation stages, you go some way to avoiding restructuring that typically occurs once a platform is in use.
Issues tend to arise when several applications and/or project repositories are implemented, as this results in what we refer to as "multiple versions of the truth".
By running your work projects using a single enterprise wide issue management platform, this is avoided as anyone using the platform will see the same "single version of the truth".
When this approach is adopted there is little room for confusion as all users see and understand the same thing.
Issue tracking is just one part of project management, and forms part of a whole mix of methodologies, so an ideal situation when managing a project is to use an enterprise wide project management platform which incorporates issue tracking and management.