Requirement Traceability Coverage
This guideline describes how to measure and use requirement traceability coverage metric.
Main Description

Overview

This coverage measure shows the percent of high level requirements (as defined in the Requirement Management Plan) that have lower level requirements traced to them. As requirements at a high level are stabilized and scoped, it is appropriate to refine the requirements to lower level requirements, specifying traceability among them.

Requirement traceability coverage is a way to measure that requirement effort is put toward refining requirements that within scope and that the breadth perspective is taken in that refinement effort.

In some ways, this measure is a reciprocal of Untraced Requirements, though it used for a different purpose.

Measurement Method

Percent of high level requirements that have lower level requirements traced to them over time i.

Measurement Analysis

Use a line chart to show the percentage of requirement traceability coverage through the lifecycle. Depending on the kind of project, the desired value is moderated by trending toward a learned mid-range value. (That is, there is the possibility of too much traceability.)