Identification and classification of barriers and benefits of requirements traceability in project development

Abstract

Requirements are conditions that a product, service, or process must present and requirements management facilitates this realization. For this, the requirements traceability technique is used for the development of projects and systems and all management of the requirements life cycle. However, the literature recognizes the proven benefits of adherence to the technique, but the plurality of problems inhibits its adherence. Thus, this article aims to identify and classify the barriers and benefits of requirements traceability. For this purpose, it was elaborated a systematic literature review, and for the results´ analysis and codification, the MAXQDA software was used. A total of 15 barriers and 15 benefits were identified. It is possible to verify that both in the case of benefits and barriers, there is a cause and effect relationship between them. In other words, barriers such as “Low flexibility and integration of tools” lead to the emergence of other barriers such as “Management inefficiency”.