Traceability Guideline for Software Requirements and UML Design

Abstract

Traceability between software requirements and UML design helps requirement engineers and software developers understand the project goal and software architecture. However, the traceability mapping between the two elements is not well-defined and as a result there is no consistent way to make the traceability between two. A practical guideline is proposed for the traceability between software requirement and UML design. The guideline includes meta-model and process step. The process step defines detailed processes and most importantly, the Requirement-type and its mapping to UML diagrams. Requirements can be categorized based on their aspects and this categorization can be made as Requirement-type. This pre-defined Requirement-type is added to each requirement and this Requirement-type enforces to use certain types of UML diagrams as solutions. This mapping between each Requirement-type and UML diagram is the key of proposed guideline. With the help of the Requirement-type and mapping, traceability link can be made easily and checked automatically. The guideline was applied to the Missile Project and Helicopter Project of ADD (Agency of Defense Development) in South Korea.