Easy steps to create Requirement Traceability Matrix (RTM)

A Traceability Matrix is a document that co-relates any two-baseline documents that require a many-to-many relationship to check the completeness of the relationship.

It is used to track the requirements and to check the current project requirements are met.

Advantages of Requirement Traceability Matrix (RTM):

1. Gives Overview of ALL the requirements
2. Shows how requirements are linked to Test Cases
3. Makes sure 100% coverage of requirements
4. Easy to prepare
5. No special tool is required

How to prepare Requirement Traceability Matrix (RTM):

1. Get all available requirement documents. For eg. Business Requirement Document(BRD), Functional Requirement Document(FSD), Technical Requirement Document(TSD)
2. First list down All the requirements from BRD one by one with requirement ID#
3. Now go to FSD, and list all respective functional requirements for each Business Requirements
4. Open Test Scenario or Test Case document and link available TC IDs to respective Functional Requirements

Let’s take an example:

Business Requirement Document (BRD) :

This document is provided by the Client with high-level business Requirements. Suppose for Flight Booking Application it shows below 2 requirements

BR_1  Reservation Module :

It should allow the user to book one or more tickets, one way or a round way for future dates

BR_2  Payment Module:

User should able to make payment for booked tickets via Credit / Debit Card or through Reward Points

Functional Specification Document (FSD) :

This document is prepared by the Technical team which further elaborate business requirements into functional requirements that can be implemented in software.

Suppose above 2 business requirements in BRD have more detailed functional requirements:

BR_1  Reservation Module :

• FR_1 : One Way Ticket booking
  • It should allow user to book one-way ticket
• FR_2 : Round Way Ticket
  • It should allow user to book round way ticket
• FR_3: Multicity Ticket booking
  • It should allow user to book one way or round way ticket for multiple cities

BR_2  Payment Module:

• FR_4: By Credit Card
  • It should allow user to make payment by Credit Cards
• FR_5 By Debit Card
  • It should allow user to make payment by Debit Cards
• FR_6 By Reward Points
  • It should allow user to make payment by Reward Points

And you have written some test cases or test scenarios for each functional requirement.

   

So if we prepare simple Requirements Traceability Matrix (RTM) for the above example it would like as below:

You can also add Execution Status and Defects columns in RTM to view the overall status of all requirements along with Test Cases.