Modeling of requirements tracing

Abstract

Software customers want both sufficient product quality and agile response to requirements changes. Formal software requirements tracing helps to systematically determine the impact of changes and to keep track of development artifacts that need to be re-tested when requirements change. However, full tracing of all requirements on the most detailed level can be very expensive and time consuming. In the paper an initial "tracing activity model" is introduced along with a framework that allows measuring the expected cost and benefit of tracing approaches. In a feasibility study a subset of the activities belonging to the model has been applied to compare three tracing strategies: agile, "just in time" tracing, and fully formal tracing. The study focused on re-testing and it has been performed in the context of an industry project where the customer was a large financial service provider.In the study a) the model was found useful to capture costs and benefits of the tracing activities and to compare different strategies; b) a combination of tracing approaches proved helpful in balancing agility and formalism. © 2008 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.