Release planning

• US 8,006,222 B2
• Filed: 03/24/2004
• Issued: 08/23/2011
• Est. Priority Date: 03/24/2004
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Guenther H. Ruhe
• Original Assignee: Guenther H. Ruhe
• Inventors: Ruhe, Guenther H.
• Primary Examiner(s): Dam; Tuan Q
• Assistant Examiner(s): Wang; Ben C
• Application Number:
  US10/807,465
• Publication Number:
  US 20050216879A1
• Time in Patent Office: 2,708 Days
• Field of Search: 717101-103
• US Class Current: 717/101
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/10 Office automation; Time management

Abstract

A method of software release planning. The method comprises the steps of assigning stakeholder priorities to a set of requirements for software; explicitly defining a set of constraints on the requirements; and operating on the stakeholder priorities with algorithms using a computer, subject to the constraints, to generate at least one release plan solution. Priorities are balanced between priorities of multiple stakeholders, and between the impact of various release plan solutions on project time, overall benefit, and quality of the software. A set of near optimal and maximally distinct solutions is generated.

Claims

1. A method executed by a central processing unit for release planning, the method comprising:

assigning stakeholder priorities to a set of requirements, where the priorities are assigned by plural stakeholders;

explicitly defining a set of constraints on the requirements; and

generating a set of release plan solutions using algorithms carried out by the central processing unit for evaluation together, each release plan solution of the set of release plan solutions satisfying the constraints, balancing between stakeholder priorities of different stakeholders, and having a positive impact, measured by objective criteria, on at least one of project time, overall cost and quality;

wherein the algorithms comprise one or more of genetic algorithms, heuristic algorithms and integer programming algorithms and use at least one objective function, which comprises an aggregation of stakeholder priorities or value estimates to evaluate said release plan solutions; and

selecting at least one release plan solution from the set of candidate release plan solutions based on the positive impact of the at least one release plan solution.

2. The method of claim 1 in which generating is carried out repeatedly after changing one or more of the constraints, requirements, objective criteria, or stakeholder priorities.

3. The method of claim 2 in which changing comprises actions chosen from a group consisting of:

adding additional requirements;

removing existing requirements;

modifying existing requirements; and

adjusting stakeholder priorities.

4. The method of claim 2 further comprising assigning the requirements to one of the next release, the next but one release, or unassigned.

5. The method of claim 4 in which repeating the generation of a set of release plan solutions comprises using the unassigned requirements as the requirements in the next generation of a set of release plan solutions.

6. The method of claim 1 in which the set of constraints is chosen from a group consisting of precedence relationships between requirements, coupling relationships between requirements, effort, resource, budget, risk, and time.

7. The method of claim 1 in which stakeholder priorities are represented by a numerical value representing stakeholder satisfaction that a requirement be assigned to one of three categories, the categories consisting of the next release, the next but one release, and postponed.

8. The method of claim 1 in which the requirements are grouped into groups of requirements and the algorithms balance between stakeholder priorities assigned to the groups of requirements.

9. The method of claim 1 in which stakeholders prioritize subsets of the complete set of requirements.

10. The method of claim 1 where the set of release plan solutions generated are a set of maximally distinct alternative release plan solutions where for each plan the guaranteed degree of optimality is known.

11. A computer programmed to carry out the method of claim 1.

12. Non-transitory computer readable media containing instructions for a computer to carry out the method of claim 1.

13. The method of claim 1 in which the constraints comprise a measure of resource consumption.

14. The method of claim 1 in which computation of the algorithms is carried out externally from an application service provider, and stakeholder priorities are input to a computer from remote locations.