Traceability

the property of a result of a measurement whereby it can be related to appropriate standards, generally international or national standards, through an unbroken chain of comparisons.

(1) The characteristic of software systems or designs or architectures or domain models that identifies and documents the derivation path (upward) and allocation/ flowdown path (downward) of requirements and constraints. (2) The degree to which a relationship can be established between two or more products having a predecessor-successor or master-subordinate relationship to one another.

Property of the development of a system that allows requirements to be traced from one representation to another [CESG].