Concept: Traceability |
Traceability is a term used to describe the establishment and maintenance of relationships between artifacts such as a requirement and a design class or a requirement and a test case, so that one can reason about the completeness of work done and assess the impact of changes.
Relationships
Related Elements | Detail Requirements
Main Description
Traceability is about understanding how high-level requirements - objectives, goals, aims, aspirations, expectations, needs - are transformed into low-level requirements, how they are implemented, and how they are verified. Using traceability can provide the following benefits [HUL05]: Greater Confidence in meeting objectives Establishing traceability engenders greater reflection on how objectives are satisfied. Traceability permits coverage analysis to ensure that everything we agreed to do has been done (completeness), and only what we agreed to do has been done (no gold platting). Ability to assess the impact of change Traceability permits various forms of impact analysis that can be used to assess the cost, schedule and technical impact of a proposed change. Improved accountability Traceability provides greater clarity of how work contributes to the whole. Ability to track progress It is notoriously difficult to measure progress when all that you are doing is creating and revising artifacts. Processes surrounding traceability allow precise measures of progress (is there a design artifact for each requirement?, Is there a test case for each requirement?). Ability to balance cost against benefit Relating product components to the requirements allows benefit to be assessed against cost.
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