Jama Software, the leading requirements management solution provider, released the Requirements Traceability Benchmark – the first-ever large scale, empirical study to measure Traceability ScoresTM and the impact different levels of requirement traceability have on quality and cycle times. The benchmark dataset includes over 40,000 projects spanning numerous industries. Requirements traceability across the entire systems development lifecycle is a core tenant of the systems engineering discipline and underpins industry standards to ensure higher quality, faster cycle times, and less costly rework.
- The Requirements Traceability Benchmark found a statistically significant relationship between Traceability Scores and cycle time and quality. Specifically:
- Higher Traceability Scores were found to correlate to faster test case execution and defect detection. Top quartile performers outperformed bottom-quartile counterparts by 5X.
- Higher Traceability Scores were found to correlate to more tests being completed and a higher percentage of passed tests. Top quartile performers outperformed bottom-quartile counterparts by nearly 2X.
Additional findings include:
- The top 10% of performers achieve an average Traceability Score of 87%
- Top quartile performers have a 7xhigher average traceability score than bottom quartile performers
- Performance varies across projects within companies with 57%of companies having projects in more than one quartile
“Process improvement requires measurement,” said Marc Osofsky, Jama Software’s CEO. “The engineering process needs to catch up to other business functions in terms of process measurement. Traceability Scores now provide a great way for companies to baseline current performance and measure improvement over time.”
