Tracing software development with uml—a pragmatic workflow

Abstract

This paper proposes a software development tracing technique as a means for source of requirement verification. It is a pragmatic process since the methods employed in this research are well-known and practiced by software developers. The proposed technique helps trace any missing unimplemented or erroneously implemented requirements to insure their completeness. The underlying principles are governed by the proposed apriori algorithm and precedence relation that link all the cross-reference action items in the UML diagrams. These links are then recorded in a checklist that serves as the reference to requirement items and action sign-off confirmation. Thus, the contributions of this research work are two folds. First, the proposed tracing technique is simple, pragmatic, and inexpensive to learn and implement. Second, it helps reduce human errors caused by manual process that are often performed by different parties. The result statistics show that many errors incurred in the development process can be identified and rectified accordingly. Future work should focus on automating the proposed technique to be a development support tool for the benefits of software practitioners and technology.