Event-based Traceability for Managing Evolutionary Change

Although the benefits of requirements traceability are widely recognized, the actual practice of maintaining a traceabilityscheme is not always entirely successful. The traceability infrastructure underlying a software system tends to erode over its lifetime,as time-pressured practitioners fail to consistently maintain links and update impacted artifacts each time a change occurs, even withthe support of automated systems. This paper proposes a new method of traceability based upon event-notification and is applicableeven in a heterogeneous and globally distributed development environment. Traceable artifacts are no longer tightly coupled but arelinked through an event service, which creates an environment in which change is handled more efficiently, and artifacts and theirrelated links are maintained in a restorable state. The method also supports enhanced project management for the process of updatingand maintaining the system artifacts.