1/4/23, 10:58 AM Requirements Traceability Matrix (RTM) for Systems Engineers

Blog
News · Release Announcements · Useful Tips

Requirements Traceability Matrix (RTM) for Systems

Engineers
 Oct 20, 2022  Libor Buš  tips  share

Maintaining requirements traceability could be time-consuming and error-prone. Learn how to create a
requirements traceability matrix and use it effectively.

Table of Contents
Role of Requirements Traceability in Development of HW/SW Products
Deal With Complexity
Improve Product Quality
Comply With Industry Standards
Requirements Organization for HW/SW Products
Standard ISO/IEC/IEEE 29148
Requirements Traceability in V-Model
Example V-Model for Safety-Critical Products
Coverage and Impact Analysis
Requirements Coverage Analysis
Tests Coverage Analysis
Impact Analysis
Gold Plating Analysis
Requirements Traceability Matrix (RTM)
Create Traceability Matrix in Excel
Generate Traceability Matrix in Requirements Management Tools
How to Use Requirements Traceability Matrix in ReqView
Manage Requirements Traceability
Review Requirements Traceability
Inspect Requirements Coverage Using Traceability Matrix
Filter Traceability Matrix
Export Requirements Traceability Reports
  This website
Queryuses
andcookies to ensure
Visualize your best
Requirements experience.
Traceability Graphs OK

https://www.reqview.com/blog/requirements-traceability-matrix/#requirements-traceability-matrix-rtm 1/10
1/4/23, 10:58 AM Requirements Traceability Matrix (RTM) for Systems Engineers

Conclusion
Learn More
Try ReqView

Role of Requirements Traceability in Development of

HW/SW Products
Requirements traceability represents relationships between requirements and project artifacts maintained through the whole
development process. For instance, derived requirements are related to their source requirements, or tests cases are linked to the
requirements they verify. With a proper approach and toolset, you can successfully master complex product development, improve
product quality and ensure compliance with industry standards.

Deal With Complexity

Products combining hardware and software are typically too complex to be described by MS Word documents, Excel spreadsheets or
ticket tracking systems. These products are developed using the traditional V-model process to deal with their complexity. With this
approach, you can iteratively capture abstract business and user needs and decompose them into a more detailed high-level solution.
Finally, you can describe low-level design with all the necessary details for product development. However, you need to trace related
requirements in both directions.

Improve Product Quality

Detailed and consistent requirements traceability increases product quality. You can simply track project progress and demonstrate
which requirements were fully implemented and verified, or you can analyze the impact of requirement changes to estimate related
costs and risks.

Comply With Industry Standards

Requirements traceability is the key to compliance with industry standards for functional safety:

IEC 61508: Functional Safety of Electrical/Electronic/Programmable Electronic Safety-related Systems

ISO 26262: Road Vehicles – Functional Safety
IEC 62304: Medical Device Software — Software Life Cycle Processes
DO 178C: Software Considerations in Airborne Systems and Equipment Certification
EN 50128: Railway Applications — Communication, Signaling and Processing Systems — Software for Railway Control and
Protection Systems

Requirements Organization for HW/SW Products

Let’s see how to organize requirements to better understand the value of requirements traceability.

Standard ISO/IEC/IEEE 29148

The international standard ISO/IEC/IEEE 29148 — Systems and software engineering — Life cycle processes — Requirements engineering
describes how to capture requirements using different requirements specifications:

Business Requirements Specification (BRS)

Stakeholder Requirements Specification (StRS)
System Requirements Specification (SyRS)
Software Requirements Specification (SRS)

Requirements Traceability in V-Model

We’ve learned in the previous section that we need to manage traceability between requirements and other project artifacts in the V-
model. For that, you can use several types of traceability links:

Satisfaction links: lead from detailed requirements to more abstract source requirements
Verification & Validation links: lead from verification & validation test cases to requirements
Mitigation links: lead from requirements to mitigated risks

Traceability links are directional, and there is a convention to create them from bottom to top in the V-model. It means that derived
(detailed) requirements are linked to their source (abstract) requirements. However, you must follow relations between requirements in
  This website uses cookies to ensure your best experience.
both directions to analyze requirements traceability effectively. For instance, follow satisfaction links from top to bottom to explore how
https://www.reqview.com/blog/requirements-traceability-matrix/#requirements-traceability-matrix-rtm 2/10
1/4/23, 10:58 AM Requirements Traceability Matrix (RTM) for Systems Engineers

the product solves a specific user need. On the other hand, follow satisfaction links from bottom to top to understand what the source
user needs are for a selected low-level design requirement.

Example V-Model for Safety-Critical Products

The V-model for safety-critical products usually has 3 levels of abstraction:

Stakeholder Requirements: Capture user needs for the developed product and describe how they are validated by tests.
Safety Risks: Identify potential failures, their causes, and effects using Failure Modes and Effects Analysis (FMEA) method. If the risk
level for a potential failure is too high, propose corrective actions mitigating the risk.
System Requirements: From stakeholder requirements and safety risks derive system requirements providing a high-level solution
of user needs. Describe how system requirements are verified by system-level tests.
SW or HW Requirements: Decompose the system to independent HW/SW subsystems. For each subsystem derive its detailed low-
level requirements from system requirements. Describe how HW/SW requirements are verified by integration tests.

Coverage and Impact Analysis

We now understand how to organize requirements and link them together. What are the benefits of this? Let’s explain how it enables
requirements coverage and impact analysis.

Requirements Coverage Analysis

Identify which high-level requirements are not covered by a derived lower-level requirement. These requirements are apparently not
implemented, and the product does not meet user needs.

Tests Coverage Analysis

Demonstrate that all requirements were verified by test cases. We cannot prove that the product works as expected if some
requirements are not verified. Moreover, test cases can clarify requirements and identify duplicate or even wrong requirements. Analyze
test coverage from early product development stages. It can reveal requirements issues and save costs of implementing unwanted
functionality.

Impact Analysis
Reveal the impact of any proposed stakeholder requirements change. Estimate the related costs to make an informed decision on
whether to approve or reject the change.

Gold Plating Analysis

Identify low-level requirements which do not satisfy any high-level requirement. Their implementation will lead to wasting of project
resources if they are not requested by any customer.

Requirements Traceability Matrix (RTM)

A requirements traceability matrix is a simple tool documenting relationships between requirements and related project artifacts. It is
usually displayed as a table with requirements listed in rows and linked artifacts in columns.

  This website uses cookies to ensure your best experience.

https://www.reqview.com/blog/requirements-traceability-matrix/#requirements-traceability-matrix-rtm 3/10
1/4/23, 10:58 AM Requirements Traceability Matrix (RTM) for Systems Engineers

Create Traceability Matrix in Excel

You can create an RTM as an Excel table representing low-level SW requirements as rows and test cases as columns. Then, gather all
requirements and test cases in the table. Finally, if a test case verifies a requirement, put a cross character (“X”) in the corresponding
table cell as shown on the left part of the image above.

You can also include short requirement and test case descriptions in the traceability matrix to improve its information value. Another
possibility is to replace each cross character with the corresponding test case status (passed or failed). This allows computing the status
of each requirement from all test statuses in its row.

Working with RTMs in Excel is only feasible for small projects. However, it is quite challenging for medium and large projects with
hundreds or even thousands of requirements. You must deal with these problems:

Manual maintenance: Maintaining RTM in Excel is time-consuming and error-prone. You need to manually update its rows and
columns according to two different source documents – a requirements specification and a test plan.
Poor usability: Working with large RTMs is cumbersome. Just imagine scrolling over an RTM with more than 100 rows and
columns to find out if a requirement is verified by any test.
View 2 documents only: Traceability analysis across multiple levels is difficult. You need to jump between multiple traceability
matrices when tracing coverage from high-level requirements (user needs) via detailed software requirements down to design
elements.

Generate Traceability Matrix in Requirements Management Tools

You really do not need to waste your time and effort with manual maintenance of RTM in Excel! There are advanced requirements
management tools, such as IBM Rational DOORS and DOORS Next Generation (DNG), Polarion, Visure, or ReqView, in which you can use
RTM very conveniently, even for thousands of requirements.

Requirements management tools offer several powerful RTM features not available in Excel:

Real-time view: Update RTM automatically when requirements traceability changes.

Custom layout: Configure RTM to display additional information about linked project artifacts, for instance, all test cases verifying
a requirement with their last execution status.
Multi-level traceability: Display project artifacts linked across several levels in a single view, for instance, system and SW
requirements derived from a stakeholder requirement.
Export to Word or Excel: Generate RTM from a requirements baseline to be reviewed offline.

Do you maintain requirements traceability matrix in Excel manually?

  FREE TRIAL   DOWNLOAD

Find out how ReqView can simplify your daily requirements traceability tasks.

How to Use Requirements Traceability Matrix in ReqView

ReqView is a requirements management tool for HW/SW products that stands out for its powerful requirements end-to-end traceability
in the V-model.
  This website uses cookies to ensure your best experience.

https://www.reqview.com/blog/requirements-traceability-matrix/#requirements-traceability-matrix-rtm 4/10
1/4/23, 10:58 AM Requirements Traceability Matrix (RTM) for Systems Engineers

Let’s demonstrate ReqView on an Example Project storing user needs (NEEDS), SW requirements (SRS), test cases (TESTS), information
security risks (RISKS), and design elements (ARCH).

Manage Requirements Traceability

The video below shows how you can manage and browse requirements traceability easily in ReqView.

First link requirements with just a few clicks. Then display linked requirements in the Links pane conveniently. Finally, browse
requirements traceability by clicking on links similarly as you browse the Internet.

You can edit and delete links if needed, and you can configure project traceability to define types of links supporting your workflow.

Let’s see how you can review the requirements traceability matrix in ReqView.

Review Requirements Traceability

The video below demonstrates how you can customize RTM views for your V-model to review end-to-end requirements traceability in
ReqView.

  This website uses cookies to ensure your best experience.

https://www.reqview.com/blog/requirements-traceability-matrix/#requirements-traceability-matrix-rtm 5/10
1/4/23, 10:58 AM Requirements Traceability Matrix (RTM) for Systems Engineers

First, configure a dynamic RTM view showing the whole context of SW requirements (SRS) in your software development life-cycle.
Create a custom traceability column displaying upstream requirements (NEEDS) linked by satisfaction links. Set its name to “Satisfies”
and place it on the left of the requirement description. Then create another traceability column “Is Verified By” displaying test cases
(TESTS) linked by verification links and place it on the right of the requirement description. You can generate both traceability columns
using the traceability wizard in just a few clicks.

Then, export a static RTM snapshot to HTML, MS Word, PDF, Excel, or CSV and share it with your team. You can customize traceability
reports using export templates to fit your specific layout and styling needs.

Example: Create an RTM view displaying SW requirements (SRS) with the related user needs (NEEDS), test cases (TESTS) and design
elements (ARCH). Export an RTM snapshot to Excel for offline reviewers.

Dynamic RTM view in ReqView

Static RTM report exported to Excel

  This website uses cookies to ensure your best experience.

https://www.reqview.com/blog/requirements-traceability-matrix/#requirements-traceability-matrix-rtm 6/10
1/4/23, 10:58 AM Requirements Traceability Matrix (RTM) for Systems Engineers

  Download Example RTM in Excel

Let’s see how to analyze requirements coverage and the impact of changes using an RTM in ReqView.

Inspect Requirements Coverage Using Traceability Matrix

You can analyze the impact of changes for selected high-level requirements conveniently. Use RTM views with custom template columns
displaying requirements coverage.

Template columns are defined using Handlebars templates to output HTML snippets displayed in RTM views. You can use predefined
export helper functions in your templates to iterate traceability links and evaluate specific conditions, for instance, to display a warning
about missing satisfaction or verification links.

Example: Create an RTM view with Downstream Traceability column displaying coverage of top-level user needs (NEEDS) by
downstream SW requirements (SRS) and their test cases (TESTS). Output a warning for user needs not covered by satisfaction or
verification traceability links. More info 

  This website uses cookies to ensure your best experience.

https://www.reqview.com/blog/requirements-traceability-matrix/#requirements-traceability-matrix-rtm 7/10
1/4/23, 10:58 AM Requirements Traceability Matrix (RTM) for Systems Engineers

Filter Traceability Matrix

You may need to detect missing or unverified functionality represented by gaps in requirements coverage. To identify gaps in
traceability you can simply scroll an RTM view or exported traceability reports and look for empty cells or warnings. However, this
approach is not convenient for large documents.

You can display requirements with missing links using the filter links feature. To filter links, you need to capture a requirement type (User
Story, Functional Requirement, Constraint, etc.) in a custom enumeration attribute and consistently link requirements and other project
artifacts using link types.

Example: To display user stories (NEEDS) without any satisfaction link from SW requirements (SRS), focus the Filter field above the RTM
view and enter  Type: User Story and  NOT Is satisfied by conditions. More info 

Export Requirements Traceability Reports

You can create a traceability report if you need to review traceability coverage offline. Similarly to template columns, traceability reports
are defined using Handlebars templates to output text files (HTML, XML, CSV, JSON). You can iterate traceability links and evaluate
custom conditions using export helper functions. The advantage of traceability reports is that they have more powerful layout and
styling options than traceability columns. For instance, you can use external JS, CSS or icon libraries in HTML templates.

Example: Create an RTM report displaying coverage of top-level user needs (NEEDS) by downstream SW requirements (SRS) and their
test cases (TESTS). Display the status of SW requirements and tests to understand the development status. Output a warning for user
needs not covered by satisfaction or verification traceability links. More info 

  This website uses cookies to ensure your best experience.

https://www.reqview.com/blog/requirements-traceability-matrix/#requirements-traceability-matrix-rtm 8/10
1/4/23, 10:58 AM Requirements Traceability Matrix (RTM) for Systems Engineers

If you need a little help with your specific traceability reports, contact us. We offer custom services and will be happy to tailor complex
custom reports according to your specific needs.

Query and Visualize Requirements Traceability Graphs

You can extend ReqView with powerful free tools based on Neo4j graph database to solve more advanced usecases:

Query traceability: Explore traceability graphs using intuitive Cypher graph query language, e.g., list all user stories impacted by a
change in a selected SW module.
Validate traceability consistency: Detect anomalies of requirements traceability and display them in a report, e.g., list all
satisfaction links with the wrong direction or leading between wrong documents.
Visualize traceability graphs: Select a part of requirements traceability and display it graphically, e.g., make a figure visualizing
requirements coverage by a tree view and include it in your Powerpoint presentation.

For more information, see How to Analyze Requirements Traceability in Neo4j Graph Database.

  This website uses cookies to ensure your best experience.

https://www.reqview.com/blog/requirements-traceability-matrix/#requirements-traceability-matrix-rtm 9/10
1/4/23, 10:58 AM Requirements Traceability Matrix (RTM) for Systems Engineers

Conclusion
We explained the key benefits of managing requirements traceability during the development of HW/SW products:

Deal with product complexity

Ensure that requirements are fulfilled and verified
Make the right decisions during the development
Comply with standards

Then, we introduced the requirements traceability matrix (RTM) as a powerful tool for exploring requirements traceability. We also
discussed why maintenance of RTM in Excel is not feasible for complex HW/SW products.

Finally, we demonstrated how ReqView solves these challenges and helps you in managing requirements traceability effectively.

Learn More
ReqView Blog: Manage Requirements Better Than in Excel
ReqView Blog: How to Analyze Requirements Traceability in Neo4j Graph Database
ReqView Documentation: Requirements Traceability Links — learn how to manage requirements traceability links
ReqView Documentation: Custom Export using Templates — learn how to customize traceability reports
ReqView Support Portal: Downloads — download example traceability templates
Contact us — we’ll be happy to answer your questions

Try ReqView

Do you maintain requirements traceability matrix in Excel manually?

  FREE TRIAL   DOWNLOAD

Find out how ReqView can simplify your daily requirements traceability tasks.

 ReqView 2.15 — Link Projects, Reuse Requirements, Update From How to Exchange Requirements Between Tools via ReqIF 
ReqIF

© Copyright 2013-2022 by Eccam s.r.o. All rights reserved.

  This website uses cookies to ensure your best experience.

https://www.reqview.com/blog/requirements-traceability-matrix/#requirements-traceability-matrix-rtm 10/10