An investigation of requirements traceability practices in software companies in Malaysia

Requirement traceability (RT) is one of the critical activity of good requirements management and an important part of development projects. At the same time, it improves the quality of software products. Nevertheless, industrial practitioners are challenged by this lack of guidance or results which serve as a rule or guide in establishing effective traceability in their projects. The outcome of this is that practitioners are ill-informed as to the best or most efficient means of accomplishing their tasks, such as found in software companies. Notwithstanding the lack of guidance, there are a number of commonly accepted practices which can guide industrial practitioners with respect to trace the requirements in their projects. This study aims to determine the practices of RT through conducting a systematic literature review. Also, this study conducted a survey for investigating the use of RT practices in the software companies at northern region of Malaysia. Finally, a series of interviews with practitioners were carried out to know the reasons that influence on the use of these practices in software development. The findings showed that majority software companies do not use traceability practices for tracing requirements due to financial issues and the lack of knowledge of these practices. This study presented empirical evidence about the use of RT practices among software companies. Thus, the findings of this study can assist practitioners to select RT practices, and also enables researchers to find gaps and pointers for future study in this study domain

Benefits of defect taxonomies and validation of a new defect classification for health software

Defect-based testing is a powerful tool for finding errors in software, including medical device software. Many software manufacturers avoid this method because it requires a detailed defect taxonomy that is expensive to construct and difficult to validate. SW911 is new defect taxonomy for health software being developed by the Association for the Advancement of Medical Instrumentation. This paper explains how defect taxonomies have been used and the benefits to industry. The initial steps of the validation of SW91 include mapping vulnerabilities from the Common Weakness Enumeration and a dataset from a medical device software development company in Ireland. Finally, the paper details future plans for validation, including taxonomy based testing which will be used to validate the efficiency, reliability, ability to perform useful analyses and defect coverage of SW91

Taxonomy Based Testing and Validation of a new Defect Classification for Health Software

Defect-based testing is a powerful tool for finding errors in software. Many software manufacturers avoid this method because it requires a detailed defect taxonomy that is expensive to construct and difficult to validate. The Association for the Advancement of Medical Instrumentation (AAMI) is developing SW911, a defect taxonomy to be published as a standard for health software. This paper details three methods to validate SW91 for its comprehensiveness. The initial validations of SW91 were conducted via mapping vulnerabilities from the Common Weakness Enumeration and a dataset from a medical device software development company in Ireland. Taxonomy based testing is another validation method proposed in this research and its applicability was investigated using empirical data from a medical device software development company in Ireland. Finally, the paper details future plans to implement taxonomy based testing to improve software quality in medical device software and to validate SW91. This validation will focus on the efficiency, reliability, ability to perform useful analyses and defect coverage of SW91

Un análisis de enfoques de Validación de Requerimientos

En la actualidad, se observa que los sistemas de software son cada vez más complejos, por lo que las exigencias de calidad en el desarrollo deben ser mayores. Es necesario que el desarrollo de software sea más riguroso para obtener un producto de adecuada calidad. La identificación y tratamiento de errores en etapas tempranas del proyecto de software es crucial para disminuir los costos de operación y evitar errores en etapas posteriores del desarrollo. En el marco de la Ingeniería de Requerimientos (RE por sus siglas en inglés Requirements Engineering) la validación de los requerimientos es una tarea fundamental en cualquier proyecto de Ingeniería de Software y debe ser un proceso continuo en el ciclo de vida del desarrollo del sistema. El principal objetivo de la validación de requerimientos es confirmar que los requerimientos especificados sean representaciones de las necesidades y expectativas de los usuarios y que además sean completos, correctos y consistentes entre otras características. Trabajar en la validación de requerimientos se está convirtiendo en un desafío para los equipos, clientes y usuarios. Existen diferentes causas que imponen problemas de comunicación, control, intercambio de conocimientos, confianza y retrasos en el desarrollo del software. Este trabajo tiene como objetivo identificar información sobre las características asociadas al proceso de validación de requerimientos en el ciclo de vida del software: la naturaleza de la información Quién, Qué, Cuando, Por qué y Cómo validar los requerimientos. La identificación de información de los enfoques se realiza a través de una revisión bibliográfica y una evaluación de diversos enfoques de validación de requerimientos para obtener sus características, necesidades de información y restricciones.Facultad de Informátic