Complete Traceability for Requirements in Satisfaction Arguments

When establishing associations, known as tracelinks, between a requirement and the artifacts that lead to itssatisfaction, it is essential to know what the links mean. Whileresearch into this type of traceability-what we call RequirementsSatisfaction Traceability-has been an active research area forsome time, none of the literature discusses the fact that thereare often multiple ways in which a requirement can be satisfied, i.e., there are multiple satisfaction arguments. The distinctionbetween establishing a single satisfaction argument between arequirement and its implementation (tracing one way the requirement is implemented) vs. tracing all satisfaction arguments, and the possible ramifications for how the trace links can beused in analysis, has not been well studied. We examine how thisdistinction changes the way traceability is perceived, established, maintained, and used. In this RE@Next! paper, we introduce anddiscuss the notion of "complete" traceability, which considersall trace links between the requirements and the artifacts thatwork to satisfy the requirements, and contrast it with the partialtraceability common in practice.