The Essential Guide to Requirements Management and Traceability
Chapters
- 1. Requirements Management
- Overview
- 1 What is Requirements Management?
- 2 Why do you need Requirements Management?
- 3 Four Fundamentals of Requirements Management
- 4 Adopting an Agile Approach to Requirements Management
- 5 Conquering the 5 Biggest Challenges of Requirements Management
- 6 Three Reasons You Need a Requirements Management Solution
- 2. Writing Requirements
- Overview
- 1 Functional requirements examples and templates
- 2 How to write system requirement specification (SRS) documents
- 3 Adopting the EARS Notation to Improve Requirements Engineering
- 4 Jama Connect Advisor™
- 5 Frequently Asked Questions about the EARS Notation and Jama Connect Requirements Advisor
- 6 How to Write an Effective Product Requirements Document (PRD)
- 7 Functional vs. Non-Functional Requirements
- 8 What Are Non-Functional Requirements and How Do They Impact Product Development?
- 9 Characteristics of Effective Software Requirements and Software Requirements Specifications (SRS)
- 10 8 Do’s and Don’ts for Writing Requirements
- 3. Requirements Gathering and Management Processes
- 4. Requirements Traceability
- Overview
- 1 What is Traceability?
- 2 Tracing Your Way to Success: The Crucial Role of Traceability in Modern Product and Systems Development
- 3 What is Requirements Traceability and Why Does It Matter for Product Teams?
- 4 How to Create and Use a Requirements Traceability Matrix
- 5 Traceability Matrix 101: Why It’s Not the Ultimate Solution for Managing Requirements
- 6 Live Traceability vs. After-the-Fact Traceability
- 7 How to Overcome Organizational Barriers to Live Requirements Traceability
- 8 Requirements Traceability, What Are You Missing?
- 9 Four Best Practices for Requirements Traceability
- 10 Requirements Traceability: Links in the Chain
- 11 What Are the Benefits of End-to-End Traceability During Product Development?
- 5. Requirements Management Tools and Software
- 6. Requirements Validation and Verification
- 7. Meeting Regulatory Compliance and Industry Standards
- Overview
- 1 Understanding ISO Standards
- 2 ISO 26262 and Recent Updates: Ensuring Functional Safety in the Automotive Industry
- 3 What is ISO 13485? Your Comprehensive Guide to Compliant Medical Device Manufacturing
- 4 A Guide to Automotive Safety Integrity Levels (ASIL)
- 5 What is DevSecOps? A Guide to Building Secure Software
- 6 Compliance Management
- 7 What is FMEA? Failure Modes and Effects Analysis
- 8 Failure Modes, Effects, and Diagnostic Analysis (FMEDA) for Medical Devices: What You Need to Know
- 9 What’s a Design History File, and How Are DHFs Used by Product Teams?
- 8. Project Management
- 9. Measuring Requirements
- 10. Systems Engineering
- Glossary
What is Traceability?
The Definition
Traceability (or requirements traceability) is the tracking of requirements throughout the product development lifecycle. It is a documented thread that provides forward and backward visibility into all activity surrounding each requirement (including design, development, testing, and support). It helps minimize the risk of negative outcomes and maximize productivity. Its benefits include greater team efficiency, easier regulatory compliance, and higher-quality products.
What’s its Purpose and Importance?
Traceability enables product teams to associate a specific requirement with all the related project artifacts, as well as other requirements, both forward and backward, so that anyone can see how the activity relates to the requirement—and vice versa—at any point during development. This functionality, also called live traceability, fosters team collaboration and enables early detection of possible production risks.
Think of it this way: How important is it to have your products developed correctly in terms of definition, quality, and timing? Mission critical, right? That’s why requirements traceability is so critical.
Let’s take a look at some of the benefits of requirements traceability throughout the product development lifecycle. For example:
- Simplifies project estimates
- Enhances process visibility
- Increases development efficiency
- Improves impact analysis of change
- Demonstrates verification and validation
- Strengthens product quality
- Proves compliance or functional safety
A single line of sight on a requirement, or a digital thread, is supremely important for application lifecycle management (ALM) and product lifecycle management (PLM). Both endure tight timelines and increasing numbers of requirements — including those from regulations, where compliance is non-negotiable.
Knowing the relationship between requirements, risk, tests, and so forth, is the difference between developing a compliant product on time and getting stuck in rework, delaying launches, and dealing with unhappy stakeholders. With requirements traceability, you don’t have to compromise on speed or quality.
The bottom line is that end-to-end traceability confirms you’re building the right thing and helps you prove compliance or functional safety. Without it, your development efficiency and product quality are in jeopardy.
RELATED ARTICLE: Write Better Requirements with Jama Connect Advisor™
Forward, backward, and bidirectional: The mechanics of creating a digital thread
To connect all the phases of the product development lifecycle, from customer needs through support, four distinct kinds of links must be used to thread the process end-to-end. This includes high-level requirements as well as derived requirements—those not specifically defined but necessary for meeting defined requirements or having the system work as expected. Derived requirements must also be adequately traced to reap the full benefits of live traceability.
Forward
There are two kinds of forward traceability: forward to requirements and forward from requirements. They both trace from an upstream component to downstream artifacts. The difference is in where they begin.
Forward to requirements traces from customer need to requirements. This is important because customer needs can evolve over time. If they do, requirements may need to change as a result. Following this type of forward traceability enables teams to be informed of changes in priorities at any time throughout development.
Forward from requirements traces relationships between requirements and corresponding downstream artifacts, including test cases. This type of trace ensures that each requirement is not only satisfied but verified and validated.
Backward
Like forward traceability, there are two kinds of backward traceability. This pair traces from an endpoint, or downstream work product, to upstream elements. These two types have differing starting points.
Backward from requirements gives insight on how a requirement came to be by linking the requirement to the customer use case it addresses. This enables teams to improve decision making by understanding the origin of a requirement.
Backward to requirements begins at performed work and traces to its requirement. It gives visibility into why specific items were created and how different pieces of a system fit together. Tracing in this way also allows testers to find gaps or missing requirements.
Bidirectional
Bidirectional requirements traceability is the ability to perform both forward and backward traceability. Bidirectional is optimal because it gives teams full visibility from requirements specifications through building, testing, changes, defects, and back again. Traceability of this caliber can only be achieved through automated requirements management tools, such as Jama Connect®.
In This Webinar, Learn the Benefits of Standardizing Requirements Management Across the Organization
Traceability: is the tracking of requirements throughout the product development lifecycle.
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