Any standard software process model would primarily consist of two types of

activities: A set of framework activities, which are always applicable, regardless

of the project type, and
a set of umbrella activities,
which are the non SDLC activities that span across the entire software development
life cycle.

Managing traceability is required to ensure the requirements are carried through

properly to design, development, and delivery. Umbrella activities span all the
stages of the SDLC.
They are not specific to any particular life cycle stage.

Now, let us try to understand the concept of traceability and its importance in
software development. For example, in an organization, the activities are
departmentalized on the basis
of the functionality to be served and employees are allocated to each department. A
requirement traceability can be defined as a method for tracing each requirement
from its point
of origin, through each development phase and work product, to the delivered
product. Thus, it helps in indicating, for each work product, the requirements this
work product
satisfies.

When there is absence of traceability: The product gets compromised since the
development cannot be prioritized based on the order of criticality of the
component, ultimately leading
to missed functionality in the delivered software. Project management is
compromised due to the lack of visibility of the components of the application
being developed and
their interconnections causing a major hindrance to continuous planning. Testing is
compromised as the coverage is not verified at every stage of the life cycle. It
becomes
difficult to demonstrate that the product is ready. Finally, maintenance becomes
difficult as identification and analysis of the impacted work products and
requirements
becomes tedious. This ultimately increases the complexity during testing.

Some benefits are that its availability ensures correct implementation of

requirements as traceability gives a clear visibility of the interactions among the
components within the system.
The forward and backward visibility into the system actually helps in estimating
the tasks and activities of the project with greater accuracy through a detailed
impact
analysis for the changes. This leads to effective project management and planning.
Since traceability provides a highly visual view of the interrelationships between
the
various components, it can be used to identify the requirements that have not been
covered and hence analyze the gaps between them. Traceability gives a complete idea

about the dependencies and relationships of and between components. For any change
in requirement that is requested by the customer, it facilitates impact analysis
and simplifies the maintenance activities. Finally, traceability also helps to
ensure that all the work is against current requirements and that the requirements
are completely satisfied.

Overall Umbrella Activities cover following points

 Umbrella activities span all the stages of the SDLC
The concept of umbrella activities focuses on Requirement Traceability
Matrix
Requirement traceability matrix is needed to be maintained by projects to
ensure that the requirements are adequately addressed
Not maintaining a requirement traceability matrix results in problems
including unsatisfied requirements, problems during delivery and maintenance
Software Peer Review needs to be planned, performed, and logged.