Traceability in Agile software projects

Abstract

Context: Software applications have been penetrating every corner of our daily life in the past decades. This condition demands high quality software. Traceability activities have been recognized as important factors supporting various activities during the development process of a software system with the aim of improving software quality. Over the past decades, software traceability has been discussed in literature and there are many approaches proposed to achieve traceability. However, these current literature mainly discussed traceability in traditional software development process and very few studies are discussing traceability issues in Agile software process. Objective: This study aims to investigate the important types of traceability, benefits against challenges when conducting traceability in an Agile software project. This paper also aims to identify what mechanisms are used and how they work and help companies to achieve traceability in Agile software projects. Method: This study is conducted by interviewing 12 Agile software companies and reviewing 20 primary papers related to this research topic. Result: Rationale, Contribute and Refinement are three most important types of traceability. Traditional traceability tools such as: excel, product backlog, communication, etc are used together with automated software tools. Automated tools could be commercial tools made or self-developed by companies. Difficulties related to knowledge, experience, cooperation or commitment within the development team seem to be the most challenging. Doing traceability could help the software company gain the customer focus and guarantee or safety for its software system.