Last updated: April 28, 2006

Traceability

Traceability allows us to determine the relationship between various pieces of our product and the work products developed to document and support it.  For this project we are specifically interested in the following relationships:

• Where in the design and code an operation is implemented

• What portions of the code are exercised by a test case

• What test cases exercise a specific operation

The results of the traceability assessment / analysis are best represented in a tabular or matrix form.  For example, the following tables will satisfy the requirements stated above:

• A table in which rows represents operations and columns represent code modules.  A marker is placed in each table cell in which a module is used to support an operation.

• A table in which rows represent code modules and columns represent test cases.  A marker is placed in each table cell in which a test case results in the call of the module.

• A table in which rows represent operations and columns represent test cases.  A marker is place in each table cell in which a test case exercises an operations.

Through the traceability analysis we can determine if there are operations that are not implement, if there are portions of the code for which there are insufficient tests, and if there are operations that are not adequately tested.