4 Simple steps to create Requirement Traceability Matrix (RTM) — Free Sample to download

Shilpa February 8, 2017 Software Testing

Requirement Traceability Matrix (RTM) is a table (mostly a spreadsheet) which shows if each requirement has a respective Test case / cases to make sure if the requirement is covered for testing.

It is basically used to ensure that ALL the requirements and Change Requests are or will be tested.

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

Lets take an example:

Project: Online Flight Booking Application

Business Requirement Document (BRD) : This document is provided by Client with high level business Requirements. Suppose for Flight Booking Application it shows below 2 requirements

BR_1 Reservation Module :

It should allow user to book one or more tickets, one way or 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 Technical team which further elaborate business requirements into functional requirements that can be implemented in a 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 allows user to book round way ticket

FR_3 Multicity Ticket booking

• It should allows user to book one way or round way ticket for multiple cities

BR_2 Payment Module:

FR_4: By Credit Card

• It should allows user to make payment by Credit Cards

FR_5 By Debit Card

• It should allows user to make payment by Debit Cards

FR_6 By Reward Points

• It should allows 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 Treaceability Matrix (RTM) for above example it would like as below:

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

Please download free sample RTM Template from here.

Download

Please feel free to ask if any doubt in this article or anything related to Software Testing.

Originally published at www.opencodez.com on February 8, 2017.