The Grand Challenge of Traceability (v1.0)

This chapter offers a vision for traceability in software and systems engineering and outlines eight challenges that need to be addressed in order to achieve it. One of these challenges is referred to as the grand challenge of traceability because making traceability ubiquitous in software and systems development (traceability challenge eight) demands progress with all seven other challenges. A model of a generic traceability process is used as a framework through which the goals and requirements of each challenge are expressed. For each requirement, the current status of the traceability research and practice is summarised, and areas of promise are highlighted. This systematic analysis is used to articulate eight major research themes for the traceability community, along with a number of underlying research topics and positive adoption practices for industry. This work is a snapshot of an ongoing and collaborative effort between traceability researchers and practitioners within the Center of Excellence for Software Traceability. It is intended to form a structured agenda for traceability research and practice, a basis for classifying research contributions and a means to track progress in the field.