IMPACT ANALYSIS OF SOFTWARE CHANGE REQUESTS

• US 20100153908A1
• Filed: 02/18/2009
• Published: 06/17/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 12/15/2008
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Accenture Global Services Limited (Accenture PLC)
• Original Assignee: Accenture Global Services GmbH (Accenture PLC)
• Inventors: Ostman, Kimberly Sparkes, Panayappan, Arun, Sarkar, Santonu
• Granted Patent: US 8,352,914 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 717/104
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 8/70 Software maintenance or management
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/00 Administration; Management
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/06 Resources, workflows, human or project management; Enterprise or organisation planning; Enterprise or organisation modelling
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 99/00 Subject matter not provided for in other groups of this subclass

Abstract

In one example, a system is provided to determine the impact of implementing a change request on a software program. The system may include an architecture model of the software program that includes components. Each of the components may have attributes that may be used by the system to determine a degree of effort to modify each respective one of the components. Components may be associated with keywords. The system may search the change request for the keywords to identify components that may be impacted by the change request. The system may determine the degree of effort to modify any impacted component based on the architecture model. The system may determine the overall impact on the software program based on the degree of effort determined for the impacted components.

Claims

1. A system to determine an impact of an implementation of a change request on a software program, the system comprising:

a processor; and

a memory in communication with the processor, the memory including computer code and an architecture model of the software program, wherein the architecture model of the software program includes a plurality of components and wherein the computer code is executable to;

determine a plurality of identified changes from the change request, wherein each of the identified changes identifies a corresponding change in the software program to implement the change request; and

determine a plurality of component impacts based on the identified changes, wherein each of the component impacts corresponds to a respective one of the components to be impacted in the implementation of the change request, and wherein each of the component impacts includes a degree of effort to implement at least a portion of a corresponding one of the identified changes.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein the computer code is further executable to determine an overall impact of the implementation of the change request based on the component impacts.

3. The system of claim 1, wherein each of the identified changes identifies a corresponding change type and wherein the change type of each respective one of the identified changes includes one of:

a business logic change, a database change, an external system integration change, a user interface change, and an infrastructure change.

4. The system of claim 1, wherein each of the identified changes identifies a corresponding change type and wherein the computer code is further executable to determine each of the component impacts based on the corresponding change type of the corresponding one of the identified changes.

5. The system of claim 1, wherein the computer code is executable to determine the identified changes based on at least one keyword found in the change request.

6. The system of claim 1, wherein the computer code is further executable to determine an identified change from the change request, wherein the identified change includes an identification of a component to be added to the software program in order to complete the implementation of the change request, and the component is absent from the architecture model of the software program.

7. A method to determine an impact of an implementation of a change request on a software program, the method comprising:

providing an architecture model of the software program, the architecture model including a plurality of components;

associating a keyword with an impacted component included in the components;

determining, with a processor, an identified change requested in the change request, wherein the identified change includes a change type and the change type indicates a type of change requested in the identified change; and

identifying, with a processor, the keyword in the change request;

determining, with the processor, a component impact based on the identified change and based on the architecture model of the software program, wherein the component impact corresponds to the impacted component and the component impact includes a degree of effort to implement at least a portion of the identified change; and

displaying the component impact including the degree of effort.

8. The method of claim 7, wherein the method further comprises determining an overall impact of the implementation based on a plurality of component impacts, wherein each of the component impacts corresponds to a respective one of the components impacted in the implementation of the change request and the component impacts include the component impact.

9. The method of claim 7, wherein determining the component impact includes comparing a number of page navigations described in the impacted component with a predetermined threshold value.

10. The method of claim 7, wherein determining the component impact includes identifying a plurality of components associated with the impacted component in the architecture model of the software program.

11. The method of claim 7, wherein determining the component impact includes determining a level of difficulty to implement the at least the portion of the identified change.

12. The method of claim 7, wherein associating the keyword with the impacted component includes associating the keyword with a use case and associating the use case with the impacted component.

13. The method of claim 7, further comprising creating a task in a project server corresponding to the component impact.

14. A computer-readable medium encoded with computer executable instructions, the computer executable instructions executable with a processor, the computer-readable medium comprising:

instructions executable to retrieve at least one component included in an architecture model of the software program, wherein the at least one component is associated with a keyword;

instructions executable to determine a component type of each respective one of the at least one component, wherein the component type is one of a plurality of component types included in a type system used to model the software program;

instructions executable to find the keyword in a change request, wherein the change request includes a request to change a software program; and

instructions executable to determine a component impact based on the at least one component and the component type of each respective one of the at least one component, wherein the component impact includes a degree of effort to modify the at least one component in order to implement the change request.

15. The computer-readable medium of claim 14, wherein the degree of effort is based on an attribute of the at least one component.

16. The computer-readable medium of claim 15, wherein the predetermined attribute of the at least one component includes a list of dependencies, the list of dependencies includes a dependency of a first service on a second service, and the first service is provided by the at least one component.

17. The computer-readable medium of claim 15, wherein the degree of the effort is determined based on a comparison of a value of the predetermined attribute of the at least one component with a threshold value.

18. The computer-readable medium of claim 14, wherein the component types are represented in an Architecture Description Language (ADL) language used to model the software program.

19. The computer-readable medium of claim 14, wherein the computer-readable medium further comprises instructions executable to determine the component impact based on a change type applicable to the component type of each respective one of the at least one component.

20. The computer-readable medium of claim 15, wherein the attribute includes an identification of page navigations between a plurality of User Interface screen components, the User Interface screen components included in the at least one component.