Integrating Software Issue Tracking and Traceability Models

Abstract

Awareness of the importance of systems and software traceability, as well as tool support for traceability, have improved over the years. But an effective solution for traceability must align and integrate with an organization’s engineering processes. Specifically, the phases of the traceability process model (traceability strategy, creation, use and maintenance of traceability) must be aligned with the organization’s engineering processes. Previous research has discussed the benefits of integrating traceability into the configuration management process. In this paper, we propose Change Request management using traceability data. In our approach, new Change Requests (CRs) are created from the traceability model of the corresponding project. The created CRs contain a portion of the project’s overall traceability model that is relevant to that change. A proof-of-concept issue tracking system is proposed that uses a traceability model at its core.