The Requirements Tracebility Matrix basically maps collected requirements to their original justified business objectives or other strategic reasons. The overall purpose is to not loose focus during the project on the requirements and to have always a tight grip on the specific reasoning. In large projects a matrix itself might be not sufficient and therefore requirement management tools are used. Saving Changes...
Nadim ShaikhConstruction Manager| Larsen & Toubro Saudi Arabia LLCRiyadh, Riyadh Province, Saudi Arabia
If possible can please share the real life example for the Requirement Tracebility Matrix Saving Changes...
Sergio Luis ConteHelping to create solutions for everyone| Worldwide based OrganizationsBuenos Aires, Argentina
Trying to add something to @Peter comments above, you will find the explanation and an example inside the PMBOK. You will find others inside the Business Analysis practice guide and the Requeriments management practice standard too. Just take into account you have two types of tazability: backward and forward. Take into account that Configuration Management environment and process use the matrix (or similar) as a key tool.
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1 reply by Nadim Shaikh
Oct 27, 2017 5:47 AM
Nadim Shaikh
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Requirements are mentioned in the Requirement Documentations. Requirement Tracability Matrix is used to trace each requirements at each stage of the Project. Any change occured in the Project it can be easily traced which Requirement leads the particular change. Is it OK? Please guide
Saving Changes...
Nadim ShaikhConstruction Manager| Larsen & Toubro Saudi Arabia LLCRiyadh, Riyadh Province, Saudi Arabia
Oct 27, 2017 4:42 AM
Replying to Sergio Luis Conte
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Trying to add something to @Peter comments above, you will find the explanation and an example inside the PMBOK. You will find others inside the Business Analysis practice guide and the Requeriments management practice standard too. Just take into account you have two types of tazability: backward and forward. Take into account that Configuration Management environment and process use the matrix (or similar) as a key tool.
Requirements are mentioned in the Requirement Documentations. Requirement Tracability Matrix is used to trace each requirements at each stage of the Project. Any change occured in the Project it can be easily traced which Requirement leads the particular change. Is it OK? Please guide
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3 replies by Anshuman Jain, Lincy Jacob, and Sergio Luis Conte
Oct 27, 2017 6:27 AM
Lincy Jacob
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Thats correct. Traceability matrix can trace the requirements to various stages of the project lifecycle. E.g. In IT, what are the code files that relate to a requirement, what are the test scenaios that apply for a requirement etc
Oct 27, 2017 7:04 AM
Sergio Luis Conte
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No, it is not totally right. Let me explain. Forget about project because it is a matter of quality and it must be defined at enterprise level. At enterprise level you have to define Configuration Management. Configuration Management has a process defined (you can search for the standards mainly IEEE) with four main steps and it is supported by the whole Configuration Management environment. Configuration Management is critical success factor to put in place Change Management. Why? Because Configuration Management gives you the information needed to perform impact analysis which is key to generate the information needed to decide about a change. Inside Configuration Management you have a key technique: Traceability. Suppose you have a product on hand and the product has a long cord. When you pull the product then you see that attached to the cord you are getting all the components that generates the product. That is backward traceability. Suppose that between those components you have the product requirements specification document. When you pull the document then you will get all the components attached to the cord until you will get the product on your hand. That is Forward traceability. That is the reason why you will see into any product you buy a series of characters (today RFID tags most of the time) with data that helps just in case a product has a defect and the product is in the commerce to remove it from gondola. continue
Oct 27, 2017 2:11 PM
Anshuman Jain
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Might not be true always. A change could add, which bring all together a new requirement that doesn't exists in the Req Tracebility Matrix. In that scenario, the RTM should help in determining its a new requirements (scope change).
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Lincy JacobPM Consultant| Infosys LtdPune, Maharashtra, India
Oct 27, 2017 5:47 AM
Replying to Nadim Shaikh
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Requirements are mentioned in the Requirement Documentations. Requirement Tracability Matrix is used to trace each requirements at each stage of the Project. Any change occured in the Project it can be easily traced which Requirement leads the particular change. Is it OK? Please guide
Thats correct. Traceability matrix can trace the requirements to various stages of the project lifecycle. E.g. In IT, what are the code files that relate to a requirement, what are the test scenaios that apply for a requirement etc Saving Changes...
Sergio Luis ConteHelping to create solutions for everyone| Worldwide based OrganizationsBuenos Aires, Argentina
Oct 27, 2017 5:47 AM
Replying to Nadim Shaikh
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Requirements are mentioned in the Requirement Documentations. Requirement Tracability Matrix is used to trace each requirements at each stage of the Project. Any change occured in the Project it can be easily traced which Requirement leads the particular change. Is it OK? Please guide
No, it is not totally right. Let me explain. Forget about project because it is a matter of quality and it must be defined at enterprise level. At enterprise level you have to define Configuration Management. Configuration Management has a process defined (you can search for the standards mainly IEEE) with four main steps and it is supported by the whole Configuration Management environment. Configuration Management is critical success factor to put in place Change Management. Why? Because Configuration Management gives you the information needed to perform impact analysis which is key to generate the information needed to decide about a change. Inside Configuration Management you have a key technique: Traceability. Suppose you have a product on hand and the product has a long cord. When you pull the product then you see that attached to the cord you are getting all the components that generates the product. That is backward traceability. Suppose that between those components you have the product requirements specification document. When you pull the document then you will get all the components attached to the cord until you will get the product on your hand. That is Forward traceability. That is the reason why you will see into any product you buy a series of characters (today RFID tags most of the time) with data that helps just in case a product has a defect and the product is in the commerce to remove it from gondola. continue Saving Changes...
Sergio Luis ConteHelping to create solutions for everyone| Worldwide based OrganizationsBuenos Aires, Argentina
continue When you work on projects you need to take all what I previously write and to generate the project configuration management environment and other components at a subset of your organizational process. What is the challenge? Decide what to include as configuration item and the state where that configuration item will be consider to be included into the configuration management environment. That will have an effect about what you get attached to the cord or not. Now, what about tools?. You can use software tools or, as I have to do where I use this type of things with not tools available, a piece of paper with the needed attributes to record about the configuration item that will allow you to use the cord (forllowing my previous example) to get the expected result in forward and backward traceability. Requirements Matrix is one of then but it has sense if and only if you decided to include requirements as a configuration item. Saving Changes...
Alejandro FernándezCommissioning Manager| CAF (Construcción y Auxiliar de Ferrocarriles)Amstelveen, Netherlands
Requirements Trazability Matrix helps to identify the features of the created product that meet the input requirements.
The matrix is linking each requirement with the feature of the product that addresses it.
One simple example for software development could be:
Requirement: The software must protect the personal information of the user.
Feature: The software will include first screen where password must be entered to access to it.
In PMBOK sure you can find examples and format for organizing the info, but usually they are tables.
Most of the RTMs I have seen have individual business requirements in the first column of each row, with subsequent columns containing all the downstream construction/development components which can trace back to those.
In a software development project, the columns might be:
1. High-level requirements
2. Detailed requirements
3. High-level design element
4. Low-level design element
5. Development module/function
6. Unit test case
7. Systems/Integration Test Case
8. User Acceptance Test Case
This ensures that at every step of the delivery process, the work being done traces back to the approved requirements.
Kiron Saving Changes...
Stéphane ParentSelf Employed / Semi-retired| Leader MakerPrince Edward Island, Canada
Once additional attribute I would add to Kiron's list is a project benefit or goal. The idea is to make sure that each requirement traces back to a specific project-level objective.
Think of traceability as your quality assurance that all requirements are properly addressed and that everything that is worked on can be traced back to a requirement.
For example, during a code walk-through, each part of the coded functionality should relate back to at least one requirement. This is a great way to avoid gold-plating. Saving Changes...
