Requirement Traceability Coverage
This metric tracks the percent of high-level requirements (as defined in the Requirement Management Plan) that have lower-level requirements traced to them.
Relationships
Main Description

Purpose

As a team stabilizes and scopes requirements at a high level, it is appropriate to refine the requirements to lower-level requirements, specifying traceability between them.

Requirement Traceability Coverage is a way to measure that sufficient effort is put toward refining requirements that are within scope, and that a broad perspective is taken in that refinement effort. If high-level requirements are defined, bit not traced to lower-level requirements, the team may not be delivering correct functionality that the stakeholders need and expect.

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

Definition

The percent of high-level requirements that have lower-level requirements traced to them over time.

Analysis

Use a line chart to show the percentage of requirement traceability coverage throughout 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).

If Requirement Traceability Coverage is low, it is an indication that the team may be building a system that is not aligned with business needs.

Collection and reporting tools

Requirements traceability data can be obtained from a Requirements Traceability Matrix. Tools like Rational Team Concert or Rational Insight provide full support for collecting and reporting traceability coverage data.

Pitfalls, advice, and countermeasures

  • Requirements should be traced at least two levels, from low-level requirements to high-lever requirements and technical requirements to low-level requirements. For example, product requirements traced to customer requirements and product-component requirements traced to product requirements.
  • When there is a change to the requirements, traceability coverage should be updated and the changes incorporated.