Abstract
Traceability from requirements to code is mandated by numerous software development standards. These standards, however, are not explicit about the appropriate level of quality of trace links. From a technical perspective, trace quality should meet the needs of the intended trace utilizations. Unfortunately, long-term trace utilizations are typically unknown at the time of trace acquisition which represents a dilemma for many companies. This chapter suggests ways to balance the cost and benefits of requirements traceability. We present data from three case studies demonstrating that trace acquisition requires broad coverage but can tolerate imprecision. With this trade-off our lessons learned suggest a traceability strategy that (1) provides trace links more quickly, (2) refines trace links according to user-defined value considerations, and (3) supports the later refinement of trace links in case the initial value consideration has changed over time. The scope of our work considers the entire life cycle of traceability instead of just the creation of trace links.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
References
Abbattista, F., Lanubile, F., Mastelloni, G., Visaggio, G.: An experiment on the effect of design recording on impact analysis. In: Int. Conf. on Software Maintenance, pp. 253–259 (1994)
Bianchi, A., Visaggio, G., Fasolino, A.R.: An Exploratory Case Study of the Maintenance Effectiveness of Traceability Models. In: Proc. of the 8th Int. Workshop on Program Comprehension, p. 149 (2000)
Biffl, S., Aurum, A., Boehm, B.W., Erdogmus, H., Grünbacher, P.: Value-based Software Engineering. Springer, Heidelberg (2005)
Biffl, S., Heindl, M., Egyed, A., Grünbacher, P.: A Value-Based Approach for Understanding Cost-Benefit Trade-Offs During Automated Software Traceability. In: Proc. of the 3rd Int. Workshop on Traceability in Software Engineering, Long Beach, CA (2005)
Boehm, B.W., et al.: Software Cost Estimation with COCOMO II. Prentice Hall, Englewood Cliffs (2000)
Boehm, B.W., Huang, L.: How Much Software Quality Investment Is Enough: A Value-Based Approach. IEEE Software 23(5), 88–95 (2006)
Cleland-Huang, J., Zemont, G., Lukasik, W.: A Heterogeneous Solution for Improving the Return on Investment of Requirements Traceability. In: Proc. of the Int. Conf. on Requirements Engineering (RE), Kyoto, Japan, pp. 230–239 (2004)
Dohyung, K.: Java MPEG Player (1999), http://peace.snu.ac.kr/dhkim/java/MPEG
Egyed, A.: A Scenario-Driven Approach to Trace Dependency Analysis. IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering (TSE) 29(2), 116–132 (2003)
Egyed, A., Grünbacher, P.: Identifying Requirements Conflicts and Cooperation. IEEE Software 21(6), 50–58 (2004)
Egyed, A., Heindl, M., Biffl, S., Grünbacher, P.: Determining the Cost-Quality Trade-off for Automated Software Traceability. In: Proc. 20th IEEE/ACM Int. Conf. on Automated Software Engineering (ASE), Long Beach, CA (2005)
Gotel, O.C.Z., Finkelstein, A.C.W.: An Analysis of the Requirements Traceability Problem. In: Proc. of the 1st Int. Conf. on Rqts Eng., pp. 94–101 (1994)
Heindl, M., Biffl, S.: A Process for Value-based Requirements Tracing – A Case Study on the Impact on Cost and Benefit. In: Proc. of the European Software Engineering Conf. and Foundations of Software Engineering (ESEC/FSE), Lisboa, Portugal (September 2005)
Huffman Hayes, J., Dekhtyar, A., Osborne, J.: Improving requirements tracing via information retrieval. In: Int. Conf. on Requirements Engineering (2003)
Lindvall, M., Sandahl, K.: Practical Implications of Traceability. Journal on Software – Practice and Experience (SPE) 26(10), 1161–1180 (1996)
Murphy, G.C., Notkin, D., Sullivan, K.J.: Software reflexion models: bridging the gap between design and implementation. IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering 27(4), 364–380 (2001)
Neumüller, C., Grünbacher, P.: Automating Software Traceability in Very Small Companies: A Case Study and Lessons Learned. In: 21st Int. Conference on Automated Software Engineering, Tokyo (September 2006)
Robins, J., et al.: ArgoUML, http://argouml.tigris.org/
Ramesh, B., Stubbs, L.C., Edwards, M.: Lessons learned from implementing requirements traceability. Crosstalk – Journal of Defense Software Engineering 8(4), 11–15 (1995)
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2009 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
About this paper
Cite this paper
Egyed, A., Grünbacher, P., Heindl, M., Biffl, S. (2009). Value-Based Requirements Traceability: Lessons Learned. In: Lyytinen, K., Loucopoulos, P., Mylopoulos, J., Robinson, B. (eds) Design Requirements Engineering: A Ten-Year Perspective. Lecture Notes in Business Information Processing, vol 14. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-92966-6_14
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-92966-6_14
Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg
Print ISBN: 978-3-540-92965-9
Online ISBN: 978-3-540-92966-6
eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)