Paper Info
Title
What have we learnt from the challenges of (semi-) automated requirements traceability? A discussion on blockchain applicability
Abstract
Over the last 3 decades, researchers have attempted to shed light into the requirements traceability problem by introducing tracing tools, techniques, and methods with the vision of achieving ubiquitous traceability. Despite the technological advances, requirements traceability remains problematic for researchers and practitioners. This study aims to identify and investigate the main challenges in implementing (semi-)automated requirements traceability, as reported in the recent literature. A systematic literature review was carried out based on the guidelines for systematic literature reviews in software engineering, proposed by Kitchenham. We retrieved 4530 studies by searching five major bibliographic databases and selected 70 primary studies. These studies were analysed and classified according to the challenges they present and/or address. Twenty-one challenges were identified and were classified into five categories. Findings reveal that the most frequent challenges are technological challenges, in particular, low accuracy of traceability recovery methods. Findings also suggest that future research efforts should be devoted to the human facet of tracing, to explore traceability practices in organisational settings, and to develop traceability approaches that support agile and DevOps practices. Finally, it is recommended that researchers leverage blockchain technology as a suitable technical solution to ensure the trustworthiness of traceability information in interorganisational software projects.
Year
DOI
Venue
2021
10.1049/sfw2.12035
IET SOFTWARE
DocType
Volume
Issue
Journal
15
6
ISSN
Citations 
PageRank 
1751-8806
0
0.34
References 
Authors
0
3
Name
Order
Citations
PageRank
Selina Demi100.34
Mary-Luz Sánchez-Gordón25711.30
Ricardo Colomo-Palacios361467.78