Using requirements is good practice for any project. Requirements exist all along the V-Model, from stakeholders to code to testing, with several intermediate levels such as system and software requirements. During the engineering process, designers need to trace those requirements with different artifacts: model elements, documents, code, tests, and so on. And different models are used for different languages.
The objective of ReqCycle is to be integrated into an industrial environment. The "big picture" diagram below summarizes how the tool is designed to be used.
The main features of ReqCycle are divided into two parts: requirements management and traceability analysis.
The requirements management capabilities of ReqCycle can rely on a data model definition. This data model allows the definition of business rules and constraints. To connect data to this data model, ReqCycle provides
The traceability core engine of ReqCycle allows the capture and the creation of traceability links. The traceability links can be located at multi-level, and can be captured from high level requirements to code traversing low level requirements and design.
Figure 1 : Example of traceability analyzers
In the illustration below, the traceability is captured from design to high level requirements. An allocate relationship exists between one block and another one that implements a requirement.
Figure 2 : Example of multi-level traceability captured
To enable team working, ReqCycle will also provide features to connect requirements to an external database or to plug into version control systems (such as SVN and GIT).
Stéphane Duprat, Atos
Raphaël Faudou, Samares Engineering
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