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 framewo...
