Traceability - Improving Quality

Traceability, in general terms can be referred to as “Completeness of the information about every step in a process chain”. It is an essential paradigm in contexts of objects like ‘Measurement’, ‘Logistics’, ‘Materials’ and last but not least ‘Software’ to name a few. Software is almost omnipresent as it is used in simple data calculation process to mission critical and life support systems. And so present is its criticality, due to widespread implications on its failure. This emphasizes the importance of the software quality, standards and methodologies adapted during the Software Development Life Cycle. One of the essential practices to ensure quality standards is Traceability, which in this context can be defined as “The ability to describe and follow the life of a requirement, in both a forward and backward direction” also as “Key Weapon in the Compliance Arsenal”.

Why Traceability is required in Software?
In software engineering, the testing performs the verification of software using different types of information available in the project. A number of activities are based on the results of testing. This dependence means that there must be some kind of traceability between items involved. In other words, it must be possible to follow from the software implementation to testing information and from the testing information to the next iteration of implementation. Traceability is a standard which plays a vital role in assuring the quality of the product. Most of the software projects fail due to communication gap i.e. Gap between the requirements (expected product) and final product (actual product), traceability acts as a bridge between these gaps.
During SDLC of a Software Product, if a requirement/feature is not communicated from Requirement Gathering phase to Development phase and further to Quality Assurance phase then at the end of the cycle, we will receive a product which lacks required feature/s. This will lead to either rework or failure of the product. In this type of case, accurate traceability helps in bridging the gap and provides précised and desired quality product. Each phase of the SDLC can contribute to eradicate lack of traceability. The requirements should be traceable to QA phase through the intermittent phases like Development phase. This practice decreases rework in the further stages and also decreases the multiplication of defects which is expensive to fix later and gives more space to maximize test coverage.

Some Industry Standards
Organization which uses proper traceability techniques gets benefited undoubtedly. This is why traceability is an important component of many standards for software development; Such as the CMMI and ISO 9001:2000 Processes. Benefits of implementations of traceability can be realized in the areas like Project Management, Process Visibility, Quality Assurance, and Maintenance.

Traceability Matrix- Manual Practice
A traceability matrix can be defined as “a tabular structure that illustrates logical paths between individual functional requirements and quality artifacts like test cases”. Its tabular format can be created using a spreadsheet or word processing applications. In this manual method, a unique Identifier is given to each requirement and it is linked with other system artifacts for example test case(s).

Traceability Matrix- Management Tool
Research has found that maintaining traceability manually has become complex as size of the software increases because the traceable objects grows exponentially with this. Due to this limitation most of the Industries practitioners are moving towards using Management Tools for managing the requirements as a more professional and efficient approach. Other benefit of Management Tools is that when the requirement changes it helps the stake holder to recognize the information/document that needs to be updated and aid him/her to identify the side effects of the changes. For long term and complex projects most of the industries are using the Management Tools to maintain the traceability. It requires less manual efforts and helps in improving productivity of the resources involved in the project.

Conclusion
This article has dragged attention towards the importance of the factor “Traceability” in the software development life cycle. Organizations which implement Traceability through manual methods tend to suffer down the line due to complexity issues. To overcome this limitation, one can use Qmetry which is a comprehensive Test Management Platform that provides easy to use interface to implement Traceability which helps test teams to integrate, collaborate and co-ordinate the testing process in very easy and efficient manner. QMetry provides extensive capability to manage requirements and link them to testcases as well as defects for traceability analysis. By defining Requirements, you can plan and manage tests that are more focused on your specific business needs. Requirements are then associated to tests and defects to provide complete traceability and to aid the decision-making process. The advanced search feature allows you to locate any requirement within seconds and see all versions. In addition, QMetry provides basic reports and allows you to generate advanced reports based off your requirements.