What is Requirements Traceability Matrix (RTM)? Example Template

What is Traceability Matrix? (TM)

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.

In this tutorial, you will learn more about-

• Why RTM is Important?
• Which Parameters to include in Requirement Traceability Matrix?
• Types of Traceability Test Matrix
• How to create Requirement Traceability Matrix
• Advantage of Requirement Traceability Matrix
• Requirements Traceability Matrix (RTM) Template

Why RTM is Important?

The main agenda of every tester should be to understand the client’s requirement and make sure that the output product should be defect-free. To achieve this goal, every QA should understand the requirement thoroughly and create positive and negative test cases.

This would mean that the software requirements provided by the client have to be further split into different scenarios and further to test cases. Each of this case has to be executed individually.

A question arises here on how to make sure that the requirement is tested considering all possible scenarios/cases? How to ensure that any requirement is not left out of the testing cycle?

A simple way is to trace the requirement with its corresponding test scenarios and test cases. This merely is termed as ‘Requirement Traceability Matrix.'

The traceability matrix is typically a worksheet that contains the requirements with its all possible test scenarios and cases and their current state, i.e. if they have been passed or failed. This would help the testing team to understand the level of testing activities done for the specific product.

Which Parameters to include in Requirement Traceability Matrix?

• Requirement ID
• Requirement Type and Description
• Test Cases with Status

But in a typical software testing project, the traceability matrix would have more than these parameters.

How to create Requirement Traceability Matrix

Let's understand the concept of Requirement Traceability Matrix through a gtupapers banking project.

On the basis of the Business Requirement Document (BRD) and Technical Requirement Document (TRD), testers start writing test cases.

Let suppose, the following table is our Business Requirement Document or BRD for gtupapers banking project.

Here the scenario is that the customer should be able to login to gtupapers banking website with the correct password and user#id while manager should be able to login to the website through customer login page.

While the below table is our Technical Requirement Document (TRD).

Note: QA teams do not document the BRD and TRD. Also, some companies use Function Requirement Documents (FRD) which are similar to Technical Requirement Document but the process of creating Traceability Matrix remains the same.

Let's Go Ahead and create RTM in Testing

Step 1: Our sample Test Case is

"Verify Login, when correct ID and Password is entered, it should log in successfully"

Step 2: Identify the Technical Requirement that this test case is verifying. For our test case, the technical requirement is T94 is being verified.

Step 3: Note this Technical Requirement (T94) in the Test Case.

Step 4: Identify the Business Requirement for which this TR (Technical Requirement-T94) is defined

Step 5: Note the BR (Business Requirement) in Test Case

Step 6: Do above for all Test Cases. Later Extract the First 3 Columns from your Test Suite. RTM in testing is Ready!

Advantage of Requirement Traceability Matrix

• It confirms 100% test coverage
• It highlights any requirements missing or document inconsistencies
• It shows the overall defects or execution status with a focus on business requirements
• It helps in analyzing or estimating the impact on the QA team's work with respect to revisiting or re-working on the test cases

Let's learn RTM with an example in the Video

• Prev
Report a Bug
• Next