Track Organizational Needs with Requirement Traceability Matrix
The business world today is dependent on the information technology to meet the ever changing demands of the techno savvy customer and to withstand the competitive environment. Enterprises look forward to upgrading of infrastructure along with development of various software applications. However, the applications thus developed goes through various phases and includes analysis of requirements, specification, design, coding & testing, integration and deployment.
Each phase in a software development life cycle has its own importance with requirement analysis being a critical factor to the success of a software project . Since requirements form the basis of software development process, during the stage of requirement gathering and analysis, the software development team works together with the stakeholders to understand the various need levels. However, the complexity of the requirements along the various stages in the lifecycle of the software project makes it a difficult situation. Requirement traceability matrix helps the development teams out of such difficult situation.
Requirements traceability is the ability to trace and describe the life of a requirement, in both a forward and backward direction through its development and specification, to its actual deployment. A traceability matrix is then created by associating the requirements with the work products that satisfy them. It maps relationship between any two base lined documents such as user requirements and test cases and is represented in the form of a table with identifier for each of the items and documents. Higher the value of relationship total, the more complex is the relationships and needs to be simplified. Further, various test management tools are also used to conduct tests on the products and the requirements on which based.
Requirements traceability matrixcan be achieved either by Cross referencing, creation of specialized templates and integration of documents or by restructuring to track requirements changes. The matrix thus gives a complete visual representation of the entity items that are linked to one another by means of the relationships. Requirements traceability matrix which is developed at the beginning of a software project incorporates the project’s scope, requirements, and deliverable.
Being a bidirectional, the requirement traceability matrixtracks both forward and backward requirement. Forward tracking helps locate the output of the deliverable while the backward tracking courses the business requirement for any product features. Analysis of requirements traceability is an important part of the software development lifecycleprocess. The analysis ensures that all the requirements have been considered during the development of each phase of the project, with no loopholes due to missed requirements. The activity also ensures that all of the requirements are in accordance with each other and support the goals and objectives of the enterprises.
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