Using scenarios to support traceability

Software traceability is a recognized challenge in software development that can be ameliorated with requirements management tools. Traceability information can be used in a number of different software engineering activities such as software change impact analysis and testing One main challenge in the automation of software testing is mapping modeling concepts to code concepts. The level of granularity and the semantics supported by available requirements management tools do not, however, fully support such mapping, or more sophisticated requirement change impact analysis. Scenarios have been used as an alternative (and sometimes complementary) way to express requirements and system behavior throughout the phases of software development. Scenarios are used with different representation and semantics across software phases, and these can be related. This paper argues for exploring scenarios as one means for tracing requirements to code, and using this information to leverage automation of activities that benefit from traceability such as change impact analysis and software testing.

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