A Framework for Requirements Traceability

Requirements traceability provides support for many software engineering activities like impact analysis, requirements validation and regression testing. In addition requirements traceability is the recognized component of many software process improvement initiatives. Requirements traceability also helps to control and manage evolution of a software system. This thesis presents a systematic review and a framework for requirements traceability. The systematic review is aimed at presenting fair evaluation of research concerning requirements traceability over the period 1997 – 2007. The systematic review aims at identifying probable gaps in research about requirements traceability and opens new horizons to explore. Moreover, two companies have been interviewed to understand the practice of requirements traceability in industry. After the analysis of industrial interviews these companies have been classified into two categories of traceability users. These categories are high-end traceability users and low-end traceability users. Based on the analysis of systematic review results and industrial interviews, this thesis presents a framework for requirements traceability called ‘Three Level Framework for Requirements Traceability (TLFRT)’. This framework is composed of three levels. The level 0 of this framework focuses on pre-RS traceability where as level 1 and level 2 focuses on post-RS traceability. The level 1 provide traceability for the functional requirements, where as level 2 provide traceability for non-functional requirements. TLFRT provides guidelines to a process that can be tailored to fit the needs of the high-end traceability users and low-end traceability users as well. This framework has been statically validated in two companies. The validation of TLFRT in industry resulted in compilation of lessons learned, which ensures that this theoretical framework could also be used in real industrial environment. The results of the research presented in this thesis are aimed at supporting requirements traceability by taking its current issues/challenges into account.