The invisibility of the individuals and groups that gave rise to requirements artifacts has
been identified as a primary reason for the persistence of requirements traceability
problems. This paper presents an approach, based on modelling the dynamic contribution
structures underlying requirements artifacts, which addresses this issue. We show how
these structures can be defined, using information about the agents who have contributed
to artifact production, in conjunction with details of the numerous traceability relations
that hold within and between artifacts themselves. We describe a scheme, derived from
work in sociolinguistics, which can be used to indicate the capacities in which agents
contribute. We then show how this information can be used to infer details about the
social roles and commitments of agents with respect to their various contributions and to
each other. We further propose a categorisation for artifact-based traceability relations
and illustrate how they impinge on the identification and definition of these structures.
Finally, we outline how this approach can be implemented and supported by tools,
explain the means by which requirements change can be accommodated in the
corresponding contribution structures, and demonstrate the potential it provides for
"personnel-based" requirements traceability