Traceability

Traceability between the test basis and test results

When we talk about testing activities, we often mention the importance of traceability. The following sections summarize the traceability between the test basis and test results and detail other advantages of effective traceability.

Traceability is essential to effective test monitoring and control that spans the entire test process. It establishes the relationships between each item in the test basis and the various test results. Traceability helps you to assess the degree of coverage you achieve—for example, checking whether all requirements have been covered by at least one test case. Such traceability data helps you control the overall progress of the test process.

Over and above checking coverage, effective traceability also supports the following aspects:

• Traceability helps to assess the impact of changes by analyzing which changes to the requirements affect which test conditions, test runs, test cases, and test items

Higher, abstract level

• Traceability enables you to elevate your results to a “higher” abstract level, thus making the testing process more easily comprehensible to non-specialists. Considering only the executed test cases doesn’t provide information on how thorough or broad-based the testing process was. It is only when you include traceability information that the output becomes intelligible to all relevant groups of stakeholders. It also helps to fulfill abstract IT governance criteria.
• The same argument is valid for test progress and test summary reports—i.e., effective traceability makes them easier to understand. The status of each item in the test basis should be included in reports. One of the following statements can be made for each individual requirement:
  • Tests were passed
  • Tests failed, failures occurred
  • Planned tests have not yet been executed
• Traceability also enables us to make technical aspects of testing comprehensible to all stakeholders. Using company objectives as a yardstick, it enables them to evaluate product quality, procedural capacity, and project progress.

Tool-based support

In order to best utilize the advantages of traceability, some companies build dedicated management systems that organize test results in a way that automatically delivers traceability data. There are various test management tools available that inherently implement traceability.