Requirement traceability: A model-based approach

Abstract

Requirements tractability remains challenging, particularly in the prevalence of code centric approaches. Similarly, within the emerging model centric paradigm, requirements traceability is addressed only to a limited extent. To facilitate such traceability, we call for representing requirements as first class entities in the emerging paradigm of model-oriented programming. This has the objective of enabling software developers, modelers, and business analysts to manipulate requirements entities as textual model and code elements. To illustrate the feasibility of such an approach, we propose a Requirement-Oriented Modeling and Programming Language (ROMPL) that demonstrates how modeling abstractions can be utilized to manage the behavior and relationships of key requirements entities.