What is a Requirements Traceability Matrix (RTM)?

When you finish a project and give it to your client, it’s really important that it does what it’s supposed to do and doesn’t have any errors. But you can’t just think it’ll be okay because you did everything right when you made it. That’s not enough.

There’s something called a Requirements Traceability Matrix (RTM). It helps you watch over your project the whole time you’re working on it, to make sure everything you do matches with what the client asked for in the beginning.

Traceability refers to something that can be traced or mapped. In the context of software — you trace or track the progress of specific features based on the specified project requirement(s) which may include specs, design, or code.

An RTM is a document that connects your project requirements, test deliverables, and testing processes to track project progress. RTM can ensure that your end product is thoroughly tested and aligns with the original project requirements, intended business goals, and pre-defined specs.

With a requirement traceability matrix document, you can map relationships between predetermined project specs and related test artifacts. This practice confirms that all test cases are designed to address specific project requirements, thereby ensuring comprehensive test coverage by tracing each test case back to its respective project requirement.

RTMs are geared towards creating a template document — typically a worksheet or a table — to help trace the proper working of specific features or deliverables. They are super useful for ensuring quality for complex, highly regulated, or domain-specific projects.

RTMs are used by the project managers, technical teams, business analysts, and stakeholders to keep track of feature-specific progress and ensure the end product aligns well with the specified project specs.

RTMs are flexible custom documents. You can create these specific to your project needs. Other than the software sector, many other sectors like medical, automotive, aerospace, insurance, etc. benefit from using RTMs.

Based on the mapping direction of requirement(s) and artifacts, there are three types of traceability when you consider RTMs for software:

• Forward
• Backward
• Bidirectional

Each type portrays the correlation between project requirements and test cases. Let's quickly go through each:

Forward Traceability

Forward traceability maps project requirement(s) to test cases. Here, the project requirement(s) determine the test cases to be covered. It represents a forward-directional flow of the project and signals test execution specific to the requirement(s).

Backward Traceability

Backward traceability maps test cases to project requirement(s). It ensures that the included test cases are within the scope of the project requirement(s). Simply put, you only perform tests relevant to that specific requirement(s), and nothing more.

Bidirectional Traceability

Bidirectional traceability broadly covers both forward and backward traceability. With bidirection, you ensure that all test cases relevant to the specific project requirement(s) are good for execution and that these test cases are confined within the scope of that specific project requirement(s).

Creating a good RTM is pretty straightforward. RTMs typically contain columns to specify industry-specific details for project requirements and testing artifacts.

Here’s an overview of column fields of what to include in a requirements traceability matrix document:  

Requirements:

• Requirement ID — to label requirements based on an alphanumeric ID and correlate with test cases whenever necessary. Example: REC01, REC02.
• Project Requirements Description — to describe or explain feature-related original requirements. You can also link the description to the original requirement document to get exact details.

Test Artifacts:

• Test Case ID — to label test cases based on an alphanumeric ID and correlate with the requirement ID. Example: TC01, TC02.
• Test Scenario — to describe the relevant test scenario(s) based on the requirement.
• Expected Result — to explain the expected output or result when you execute the outlined test scenarios.
• Actual Result — to explain the actual output or result after executing the tests.
• Status — to mention the status of the tests. Example: Pass, Fail, Not executed.
• Issue(s) — to describe any issues/bugs after test execution. You can link the issue to a detailed bug report, if available.

Additional Details:

You can also include additional project-related details in your RTMs. Here are some examples:

• Date
• Project Name
• Project Manager
• Document Number
• Project Objective

Once you create an RTM sheet, you can use it as a template and customize based on your needs. Or you can use pre-built templates from the web like Notion’s requirement traceability matrix or the Eisenhower matrix template for your RTMs.

Here’s an example of an RTM for a real-world e-commerce platform using relevant fields of a requirements traceability template. It covers the requirements and artifacts for flows where a user buys a product:

BetterBugs is a visual bug-reporting tool that you can download for free as a Chrome extension. With BetterBugs, you can whip up data-filled and context-rich bug reports within seconds and link them to your RTMs for significantly improved issue traceability and shorter TATs.  

BetterBugs enables you to:

1. Capture annotatable screenshots of issues, instantly.
2. Record screens of issues in action.
3. Get the last two-minute recording at any moment of all your browser activities (Rewind).

BetterBugs auto-captures and attaches all dev tools information including warnings, console logs, network requests, and device info to every bug report you create, facilitating efficient bug management and accelerated debugging sessions.

And that’s not all!

You can also integrate BetterBugs into your preferred project tools (Jira, Asana, GitHub, Trello, etc.) to share bug reports instantly via links.

Here are the notable benefits of RTMs:

Streamlines Progress Tracking:

RTMs facilitate streamlined progress tracking for your projects from the start. It’s a strategically compiled document that enables you to get accurate information on what’s going on, what’s done, and what needs to be done in the software development cycle without losing sight of the progress.

Reassures Stakeholders and Clients:

Stakeholders and clients can refer to RTM documents to ensure that original requirements are met and every requirement has been accounted for while conducting quality testing procedures.

Ensures Optimum Test Coverage:

RTMs also ensure that the feature has undergone rigorous testing procedures covering all possible test scenarios based on specified project specs.

Compliance:

RTMs ensure that the projects are in sync with the legal and regulatory guidelines, there are no compliance issues and that nothing is left unchecked, especially in sectors like healthcare, aerospace, etc. This helps avoid getting penalized or getting in trouble with the regulatory authorities.

Optimizes Troubleshooting:

RTM documents are precise in representing identified issues. They contain baseline information regarding project requirements and employed testing processes. This helps to get first-hand information in a concise and targeted way that ultimately leads to optimized troubleshooting workflows.