Traceability Task Modeling

Requirements traceability is defined as “the ability to describe and follow the life of a requirement, in both a forwards and backwards direction”.[1] Once a requirement is documented, traces for every component of the software system that are impacted by the requirement, are constructed and maintained. During later discussions regarding bug fixes and proposed system enhancements, these traces are used for analyzing the impact the proposed modifications might have on the system. Tool support for manual link construction and maintenance is available as part of existing requirements management packages and for automated methods of research prototypes. Prior research has identified and discussed traceability problems such as problems related to user interaction and the significant effort required to create and maintain traceability links. There have been many case studies, but no formal task analyses or specific research to identify and model tasks that real users must perform as they participate in trace related activities. Without such a model, the development of traceability tools becomes an unpredictable venture without a way to measure their quality or effectiveness. This paper therefore surveys preliminary work on traceability task analysis and proposes a technique for analyzing and modeling traceability tasks.