Requirements need to be linked to other requirements as well as who created the requirement, where it came from and who / what it relates to. This linking needs to consider the relationships through time as well as across the project.

The result of this linking means that the requirements are constantly traceable across all dimensions. This traceability will mean that people accessing the requirements can easily answer relationship based questions.

The tracing also acts as a water pump by enabling users to quickly find issues and flow breaks by quiring a well traced database. The water pump continues in that well traced requirements are also able to be quickly updated and problems fix throughout the database.