In software development, a traceability matrix (TM)[1]: 244 is a document, usually in the form of a table, used to assist in determining the completeness of a relationship by correlating any two baselined documents using a many-to-many relationship comparison.
[4] Common usage is to take the identifier for each of the items of one document and place them in the left column.
The identifiers for the other document are placed across the top row.
The number of relationships are added up for each row and each column.
Large values imply that the relationship is too complex and should be simplified.