Success of Different Traceability Tools - Research Proposal Example

SUCCESS OF DIFFERENT TRACEABILITY TOOLS The concept of traceability remains an essential component for all projects undertaken in software development. The identification of the various relationships and effects of attributes, upon others within the same project, remains essential in successfully implementing a software development project. This article discusses the concept of traceability within software development projects. The different traceability requirement tools utilised in the assessment of the stakeholder requirements have been identified within the context of the article. Various attributes, which present implementation challenges to software engineers in relation to traceability, include the project cost and project timeline. The fundamental changes necessitated by the implementation of traceability have detrimental effects upon these elements of the project. Unsuccessful implementation of the traceability concept can easily result in ultimate project failure. Keywords: Requirements traceability, Successful implementation, Unsuccessful implementation, Software development process, Requirement traceability matrix. Introduction Successful software implementation remains determined by the capability to meet the stakeholder requirements established for the project. The assessment of these requirements follows a channel of researching and continuous involvement of the stakeholders to determine their expectations with the software development project. In seeking to ensure the development process is effective, recording the changes made during development remains essential. This becomes necessary in enabling other developers to trace the development process for the software. The application of traceability of requirements in a software development project offers a platform for undertaking a review of the development project in order to explore the approach at a later date. The fundamental challenge in requirements traceability remains the capacity to provide records for all the activities undertaken during the development phase. The definition of Requirement traceability will be explains more in the paper nut we can say that: Requirement traceability refers to the ability to describe and follow the life of requirement in both forwards and backwards directions (Gotel, Finkelstein). We can measure the project success by the success of the traceability process that will make sure that we meet all the stakeholders’ requirements. In this paper we will discuss the traceability challenges and problems, the motivation, and background. Also, we will evaluate the solution for the problem that will discuss later by explaining the project. In the end of this paper we will talk about the summery and conclusion. Problem identification Traceability can be defined as the identification of the links and connections existing between different project artefacts. This is undertaken through gathering essential information regarding the processes being utilised in implementing different elements of a software development process. The utilisation of software products within increasingly delicate industries has necessitated the need for requirement traceability in seeking to avert the adverse effects which could result from failure (Blanchard, 2012). Undertaking a continuous record of the changes implemented during the development phase remains essential in providing information for improvement of the development process. The lack of sufficient information regarding software development process has been a fundamental cause of software project failures. Requirement traceability provides software engineers with the capability to gather such information. The manual undertaking of the traceability process in seeking to understand the requirements presents a fundamental challenge in the utilisation of traceability. Many of the current software engineers fail to undertake traceability because of the time consumed in implementing the process which is commonly manual during the implementation stages. This remains one of the fundamental challenges which limits the utilisation of traceability during the implementation of many software projects. Despite the significance of traceability within many development projects, the concept presents numerous challenges, which must be effectively handled in seeking to ensure the implementation remains successful. Many of the involved individuals have limited understanding of the concept. Understanding the requirements remains essential as these are satisfaction elements which users and other stakeholders consider essential (Grady, 2010). The responsibility of engineers remains integrating design and tests into the software to ensure the user requirements become achieved through the software. The requirements and perceptions of the different stakeholders present immense challenges to the traceability concepts. The project stakeholders commonly have different perceptions regarding the requirements of the projects and the expected outcomes. Traceability enables engineers to integrate the stakeholder perceptions into the software development process and present these perceptions through different outcomes. The fundamental traceability challenge occurs in large projects which involve many stakeholders and with lots of requirements. The high costs involved within large projects makes traceability to become extremely difficult. The developmental changes which occur including changes in the system analysts make the implementation to become difficult because of the capability to present information regarding the changes made to the system. The fundamental changes made to the system cannot be transferred between the various stakeholders involved within the project. Many engineers fail to prioritise the traceability requirements resulting in limited information regarding the implementation challenges for the software development project. This results in the process becoming misunderstood hence, consideration for the various requirements becoming limited to the available information. Being process involving numerous modelling methods many individuals consider it extremely time consuming and commonly choose to ignore the process. This commonly results in poor documentation of the requirements, consequently resulting in poor assessment of the software requirements, and ultimately poor implementation. Effective utilisation of proper traceability requirement tools can be a fundamental element for successful implementation of a software project. Motivation Traceability remains an essential component for many software development projects undertaken within different industries. The increased software project failure rate has created a surmountable challenge if the concept of traceability. The successful integration of traceability involves consideration of different element and attributes of the project implementation process. The practice of traceability faces numerous challenges which can be identified under different segments of the project implementation (Kannenberg & Saiedian, 2009). The fundamental challenge, which commonly results in the failure for the concept to become successfully implemented, remains the aspect of cost. Consideration of the cost element significantly increases the cost of software development and many developers fail to undertake the concept because of the involved costs. The traceability concept significantly increases the costs for implementing the project, creating significant challenge for the involved stakeholders. The implementation of the concept involves making fundamental changes to the internal components of the project. Understanding the efficiency of different traceability tools remains fundamental towards the successful implementation of software projects. The tools form a fundamental basis for analysing the stakeholder requirements in seeking to ensure satisfaction form the implementation of the project. Change management becomes another significant yet inevitable challenge accompanying traceability. The consideration of the different stakeholder perceptions commonly necessitates integration of unaccepted designs into the project. These changes commonly become time consuming and can easily delay the completion of projects and time becomes extremely limited. Background Concept of requirements traceability has become a fundamental component for different software development projects. This has continuously enabled software developers to track changes made to software during the development stages (Cleland-Huang, Gotel, & Zisman, 2012). The concept seeks to ensure that all the features, which have been integrated into the system, remain traceable and have been sufficiently deployed, within the project. While some individuals might perceive this concept as temporal requirement during the development stage, traceability remains a structural necessity for the different development projects adopted and undertaken in different industries (Grady, 2010). The concept has been integrated into the software development process to ensure requirements become accurately assessed, tested and the impact changed to suit the development course. Many of the requirements addressed come from the stakeholders although other sources like functioning environment also present different requirements. Proposed solutions The successful implementation of the traceability concept with a project remains essential in ensuring project success. The traceability element enables the various requirements identified within the organisation to become integrated within the development process. The structures existing within the development process remain essential components for ensuring the successful implementation. Organisations must implement effective and sufficient traceability policies to ensure a comprehensive analysis of the involved stakeholder requirements. The existences of policies make implementation of traceability component become simplified within the project development process. Different stakeholder viewpoints become considered during the adoption of the approaches utilised in implementing the requirement traceability. Manual traceability methods present an approach, which must be utilised in the identification of the existing challenges commonly facing the software development engineers. While automation of the system remains the ultimate outcome of the process, manual identification of the challenges enables the involved stakeholders to define the elements accurately. Requirement traceability Tools Requirement traceability tools are wide and different it helps the engineers to link requirements to their source, to record the changes that happened to the requirements and to modelling elements that satisfy the requirements. A lot of software engineers use Requirement traceability matrix, which helps to record the requirements and what changes happen to them. Above is an example for a simple RT matrix that shows all the information about each requirement that will help to follow each requirement in every stage of the project. Traceability window This remains the most useful and versatile tool utilised in undertaking traceability requirement assessment. This tool is effectively utilised in exploring the relationships which make various elements become components of the software. The relationship flow remains an essential element in the effective functioning of traceability window in defining the project structure. The tool utilises a combination of model search and project browser in scanning the project. This tool analyses the organisation of different elements of the project and enables engineers to understand how the elements interact with each other. Relationship matrix This enables the understanding of relationships between the user requirements and use cases for different modules involved within the project. The traceability diagram enables this matrix to identify the requirements and establish the use cases which enable the user to realize satisfaction from the system. The use case implementation model becomes essential in implementing projects when utilising this traceability requirement tool. Relationship window The relationship window traceability tool enables the assessment of single level relationships between different elements selected in the system. This provides a better insight into the relationship than the relationship matrix which identifies many relationships between different elements. Evaluation The project will involve the assessment of the various elements of requirement, which are included in ensuring the implementation of traceability concept within a software development project. These elements will be assessed through the application of different traceability tools to establish the effectiveness of different tools as utilised in software development projects. The business requirement specifications and functional requirement specifications will be tested within the project. The project seeks to analyse the traceability requirement tools based on the following hypothesis To determine the various traceability requirements which should be analysed before implementation of software project Establish the most effective traceability requirement tool which can make the traceability process become quick and less time-consuming. Determine the traceability parameters which can result in unsuccessful implementation of a software project of failure. The experiments The traceability component involves the various business components, which commonly affect the development process of the project necessitating changes. This analyses the various elements, which are involved in administrative sections of academic institutions. The challenges presented by these components commonly affect the project implementation process, commonly resulting in delayed completion. The various challenges, which result in, project failures like costs; time and other management processes must be integrated and efficiently tested for successful implementation. The relationship between these elements will be effectively analysed to determine the effects they have upon each other. The existing relationships between different attributes identified by the project remain essential in determining the functioning of a system. The system consists of numerous elements, which provide the essential resources for the successful completion of the project. The project costs commonly affect the other elements and are also affected by other requirements of the project. Analysing the different project requirements can enhance the understanding of the project attributes, consequently enabling the determination of the significance of these elements. Requirements traceability diagram Conclusion The concept of traceability presents software developers with a significant challenge for implementing changes into the project to ensure satisfaction of stakeholder requirements. The concept remains an essential element of software development as it seeks to integrate the stakeholder expectations with the operational functioning of the project. Such integration becomes essential in the development process since it ensures that the stakeholders become satisfied with the project being implemented. The traceability challenges commonly result for the requirements established from the stakeholder expectations. Different tools can be utilised in traceability requirement assessment which is essential for successful project implementation process. The analysis of different tools enables software engineers to determine the most appropriate tool for utilisation in their projects. References Blanchard, B. S. (2012). System engineering management. New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons. Cleland-Huang, J., Gotel, O., & Zisman, A. (ç). Software and systems traceability. Berlin: Springer Publishers. Grady, J. O. (2010). System requirements analysis. New York: Academic Press. Kannenberg, A., & Saiedian, H. (2009). Why software requirements traceability remains a challenge. CrossTalk The Journal of Defense Software Engineering.  Read More