Testing with partial traced requirements: a necessary step towards higher quality system level verification

Summary form only given. We propose new approach called testing with partial traced requirements as an alternate solution to achieve quality system verification when sub-requirement tracing is unavailable. Partially traced requirements have already been used in a large two years project at Guidant Corporation. The project, called TMS, researched, built, and deployed a comprehensive test management system based on Guidant traceability graph. Partially traced requirements were successfully used: first to identify the issues related to sub-requirement tracing, and second to define a semi automated strategy to increase the quality system verification. In addition to presenting the methodology, we also report on the experiences and lessons learned during development and deployment of TMS.