Lecture_10 Flashcards
Traceability and Change Management
What is the Requirements Engineering (RE) process model mentioned in the lecture?
The spiral model from Kotonya & Sommerville (1998), which accommodates continuous changes in requirements.
What challenges arise in the RE process over time?
More stakeholders, changing needs, new regulations, and evolving business constraints.
Why is change management critical in software projects?
Failing to manage changes well can lead to project failure, increased costs, and risks.
What are the five categories of changes in requirements?
External Market
Customer Organization
Project Vision
Requirements Specification
Solution
What are the five steps in managing change?
Recognize change is inevitable
Baseline the requirements
Establish a single control channel
Use a change control system
Manage change hierarchically
What are the four steps of change management by El Emam et al.?
Initial issue evaluation
Preliminary analysis
Detailed change analysis
Implementation
What are the steps for managing change according to Strens & Sugden?
Identify the cause of change
Identify affected requirements
Conduct impact analysis
Analyze other impacts (cost, design, performance, etc.)
Decide and manage changes
How does Agile help in managing requirements changes?
Agile allows for continuous change with small iterations, customer involvement, and frequent reprioritization.
What are the drawbacks of Agile in change management?
Contract restrictions
Legal and certification constraints
Complexity in large organizations
Lack of customer availability
Challenges in distributed development
What does change impact analysis involve?
Determining how a change affects other requirements, stakeholders, laws, or business needs.
What is requirements traceability?
The ability to trace requirements from their source to implementation and testing.
What are the two types of requirements traceability?
1) Pre-RS traceability (before inclusion in requirements specification)
2) Post-RS traceability (after inclusion in requirements specification)
What are additional types of traceability?
-Backward-from: Links requirements to their sources
-Forward-from: Links requirements to design and implementation
-Backward-to: Links design back to requirements
-Forward-to: Links documents to requirements
What are the benefits of requirements traceability?
Identifying requirement sources
Supporting impact analysis
Verifying test cases
Tracking project progress
Managing requirement dependencies
How does traceability relate to safety standards?
Standards like ISO 26262 require traceability to ensure all safety requirements are documented and validated.
What are different approaches to traceability?
Value-based tracing
Feature-oriented tracing
Event-based traceability
Information retrieval methods
What is an RTM, and why is it important?
A matrix that ensures completeness, tracks changes, facilitates communication, and improves project quality.
What challenges exist in using RTMs?
Scalability, maintainability, and complexity in large systems.
What does a TIM represent?
A model (often UML) showing what elements are traced to each other.
What are the key challenges in traceability?
High cost and time investment
Lack of immediate benefits
Difficulty in coordinating teams
Missing trace links
Ownership of requirements and changes
What are some common requirements management tools?
DOORS
Jira
JAMA
ReqView
Polarion
What are the key conclusions on traceability and change management?
-Managing requirements change is complex but necessary
-Change impact analysis is crucial
-Traceability supports change management
-Various traceability approaches exist
-Tools can aid in managing traceability and requirements
