Capturing Rationale using Rich Traceability

Speaker: Jeremy Dick

3rd April 2003 , 3pm , Room 519 Claremont Tower

Abstract

Requirements traceability is now widely recognised as a vehicle for improving many system engineering processes, particularly in assessing completeness through coverage of requirements, and in understanding the impact of change. Most system engineering organisations are at the level of using "elementary" traceability, in which requirements statements are linked to specifications and designs to document the impact relationship. However, the rationale of the links is typically not captured, and stays in the minds of the engineers. "Rich" traceability provides a means of capturing the rationale for the presence of links. This rationale may represent vital design information, sometimes called a "satisfaction argument", explaining how particular requirements are met, and can help a great deal in the understanding of impact. Without a record of such rationale, the design information has to be recovered or reengineered every time a possible change is assessed. Rich traceability can similarly be used for capturing rationale associated with testing, the "validation argument", explaining why a particular set of tests is believed to be sufficient. The seminar presents the concept of rich traceability, and shows some case studies in it use in industry, including in the Railtrack West Coast Main Line modernisation programme. BIOGRAPHY: Dr. Jeremy Dick has worked as a requirements consultant for Telelogic (once QSS) for the last 8 years, and has accumulated considerable experience in helping organisations devise and implement requirements engineering processes. Previous work has included designing formal methods tools, and using them in industry. He is co-author of the most recent Springer book on requirements engineering, "Requirements Engineering",