A Blockchain-Enabled Framework for Requirements Traceability

Requirements traceability has been broadly recognized by researchers as an important quality of any software development process. However, among stakeholders, requirements traceability is often perceived as an extra task that disrupts their workflow. This perceived overhead demotivates stakeholders to participate in the creation, maintenance and use of traceability links The challenges of implementing requirements traceability are amplified when complex and large-scale software systems are developed by cross-organizational and distributed teams. Different organizational backgrounds, conflicting objectives, and organizational boundaries lead to trust issues that complicate the implementation of traceability in such settings. In this paper, the authors propose a blockchain-enabled framework for requirements traceability. This framework aims to: (i) enable a holistic and reliable view of artifacts and traceability links, (ii) provide an incentive mechanism for creators of traceability links, (iii) ensure the authenticity and quality of traceability links by means of voting mechanisms, (iv) facilitate comprehension from traceability information through query services, and (v) enable interactive graphical visualization of traceability links.