A Streamlined, Cost-Effective Database Approach to Manage Requirements Traceability

Abstract

Requirements traceability offers many benefits to software projects, and it has been identified as critical for successful development. However, numerous challenges face the implementation of traceability in the software engineering industry. Some of these challenges can be overcome through organizational policy and procedure changes, but the lack of cost-effective traceability models and tools remains an open problem. Many methods of implementing traceability exist, but each implementation method has its own limitations. A novel, cost-effective solution for the traceability tool problem is proposed, prototyped and tested in a case study using an actual aviation software project. Quantitative metrics from the case study are presented and a qualitative analysis is performed to demonstrate the viability of the proposed solution for the traceability tool problem. The results show that the proposed method offers significant advantages over implementing traceability manually or using existing commercial traceability approaches.