A systematic literature review of pre-requirements specification traceability

Abstract

Requirements traceability (RT) is the ability to link requirements to other software development artifacts. In pre-requirements (pre-RS) traceability, requirements are linked to their origin, such as interviews with stakeholders, meeting protocols, or legacy systems. Compared with post-RS traceability, which links requirements to source code and other later artifacts, pre-RS traceability has seen much less research. This article presents a systematic literature review of pre-RS traceability based on 77 articles published between 1992 and 2022, aiming to provide a comprehensive overview of its use cases, benefits, problems, and solutions. Through the analysis of existing literature, this review identifies gaps for future research and establishes a foundation for future investigations in the field of pre-RS traceability.