Requirements and lifecycle traceability

For many teams, requirements management is an essential aspect of a successful software project.

Requirements management helps to ensure lifecycle traceability by allowing you to link the test cases in your test plan with requirements that have been assigned by product managers, program managers, or other members of the larger cross-functional team. The ability to manage your requirements is made easier by the team collaborations features that are provided.

Typically, a test manager or lead is assigned a work item for a new requirement that must be satisfied. If the requirements are managed in an external tool, such as IBM® Rational® RequisitePro®, the test manager can import the new requirement into the test plan and assign it to a team member. If no external tool is used, the test manager can create the new requirement right in the test plan. Because multiple team members can be subscribed to a work item, the entire team can track the progress of the requirement work item.

The tester who is assigned the work item can associate the requirement with an existing test case or create a new test case to cover the requirement. When requirements change, the tool makes it easy to update the test cases in response to the changes in the requirements.

Throughout the project, team members can run reports to track the requirements and generate metrics that measure the health of the project.


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