Traceability Design rationale

The links not only provide traceability from requirements to implementation and vice versa to assist in review activities, but they also embed the design rationale information into the specification. If changes need to be made to the system, it is easy to follow the links and determine why and how particular design decisions were made. 

Elgh F (2014) Automated engineer-to-order systems a task oriented approach to enable traceability of design rationale. Int J Agile Syst Manage 7(3/4) 324-347... 

Naturally, proper testing will be the final judge. But understanding the conformance relationship allows an earlier check, which can clarify the design and the rationale for the differences. What s more, it provides traceability the ability to see how any changes in either the spec or the code affect the other. 

Within the docrrments for the computer system design, the presentation of the requirements as a whole and of each constituent element therein should be unambiguous and complete and should be traceable back to the rationale for its inclusion. This should be consistent with the means used to docrrment the system functional reqttirements, but at a lower level of abstraction. 

A set of documents should be produced and maintained so as to ensure the traceability of the rationale for the design. The appropriate documents should be produced at each step in the development process, and a set of system documents should be provided with the system upon delivery. The details of the extent, type and contents of the documentation are discussed further in Section 7. The following attributes should be achieved for all documents associated with systems important to safety ... 

---