What is
a requirements traceability matrix?
Need
a
requirements traceability matrix for an information management
requirements specification and want practical timesaving suggestions?
The objectives of a requirement traceability matrix are to
ensure:
- All requirements are addressed by architecture,
design development and quality assurance testing; and
- No additional requirements are included.
Think
of a new house. You have agreed that you require two sinks in
the master bedroom bathroom. These sinks should be specified
in
the architecture conceptual drawings and the building blueprint. During
construction, inspectors should validate that the sink and appropriate
plumbing comply with building code standards. Someone should also
verify that hot and cold water come out of the appropriate taps, the
sink drains properly and the overflow mechanism works correctly.
When
you move in, you might look to see if there are two sinks and that they
both work properly, but you are not going to check all the details—You
need to rely on the architects, foremen and quality assurance team to
verify the details.
Information management projects are similar except they sometimes have several thousand requirements and
it’s important to ensure that each requirement has been designed,
developed and tested before the system moves to production.
How are
requirements traced?
The
preferred approach for ensuring that requirements are achieved is to
associate and track each requirement to design and development
components via a "requirements traceability matrix".
A
requirements traceability matrix can be maintained in a number of forms
e.g. MS-Word table, Test Director, 3rd party requirements management
tools, spreadsheet, etc.
How do we
know that requirements are addressed?
Possible methods for ensuring that requirements are accounted for in
each succeeding lifecycle stage include:
- Inspection,
requires a careful, critical review of documentation, code and/or data
to verify that a requirement has been addressed;
- Analysis,
examines
alternative solutions in detail so that the nature and function of each
alternative may be judged as to best fit for achieving the
requirements. One example is to analyze third party products
to
determine which of the products should be purchased. Another
example is to review business process metrics to determine if the
business process has improved as hoped because of implementing a new
solution;
- Demonstration,
a practical demonstration showing how
something works to provide evidence that a requirement has been
achieved via examples or experiments; and
- Test,
performs a
pre-defined examination or trial consisting of one or more steps
intended to ensure that a requirement has been properly implemented.
Who is
responsible for requirements traceability?
- The
requirements analysis team is responsible for ensuring that all
requirements are tracked thru the appropriate design, development and
testing phases;
- The data architect, or technical lead, is
responsible for ensuring that no “extra” requirements are included in
design documentation;
- Each designer is responsible for completing a
“satisfaction of requirements” section for each design specification
indicating which requirements are addressed by the specification;
- Each
developer is responsible for documenting which requirements are
satisfied by each module, report or user interface screen;
- The peer review process should ensure that no
“extra” requirements are included in development code; and
- The
test lead is responsible for ensuring that all requirements are address
by
test cases and that test cases are not created to test for things that
are not required.
Summary…
Requirements
traceability is an on-going project management task. It ensures that
all requirements are accounted for and that no “extra” requirements
were included. The requirements analysis team has overall
responsibility for requirements traceability with support from the
architecture and design, development and test teams.
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