Software Engineering

4.3.6 
Requirements traceability guidelines
It is vital to have a complete understanding of the relationships among the software 
product and post-development processes and the project management and control 
mechanisms. It is not sufficient to have software requirements traceability among 
requirements specifications and test artifacts. To be responsive to design decisions, 
configuration alterations, requirements change proposals, and evolving stakeholder 
needs, many of the software development documentation artifacts (specifications, 
diagrams, plans, schedules, budgets, work packages, etc.) must be associated and 
tracked via one or more traceability tools. 
Figure 4.6
 identifies the types of soft-
ware design, documentation, planning, and project control artifacts that should be 
included in requirements traceability guidelines.
1 
The term 
configuration item
 is typically used to identify an integrated, deliverable software product. 
A software product may be one or more software configuration items. Every element of the software 
architecture (functional and structural components and units) represents configuration elements that 
are addressed by the allocated and product baseline.

---