Towards Method-Driven Trace Capture

Traceability is a prerequisite for managing the evolution of (software) systems. Assuring overall traceability of a system development process, i.e., capturing and interrelating all possible data, is almost impossible and by far too expensive and labor intensive. To minimize the information to be recorded and to reduce the additional costs the types of trace information to be captured should be adjusted to project–specific needs, e.g., intended trace usage, time and money available. In this paper we present an approach which supports method–driven trace capture. The project manager defines the trace information and the trace steps required for recording this information according to the actual needs in explicit traceability (method) models. In addition, the trace steps are integrated with the method definition used to guide the product development process. Based on the so gained extended method definition, the stakeholders are guided in capturing the defined trace information and trace capture is even partially automated. We report on experiments made with the prototypical implementation of the approach and discuss possible extensions. † CREWS Report Series 97–03. A version of this paper appears in the Proceedings of the 9th International Conference on Advanced Information System Engineering, Barcelona, Spain, June 18–20, 1997.