Impact analysis of software change requests

• US 8,352,914 B2
• Filed: 02/18/2009
• Issued: 01/08/2013
• Est. Priority Date: 12/15/2008
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Accenture Global Services Limited (Accenture PLC)
• Original Assignee: Accenture Global Services Limited (Accenture PLC)
• Inventors: Sarkar, Santonu, Panayappan, Arun, Ostman, Kimberly Sparkes
• Primary Examiner(s): TECKLU, ISAAC TUKU
• Application Number:
  US12/388,237
• Publication Number:
  US 20100153908A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,420 Days
• Field of Search: None
• US Class Current: 717/121
• 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 that uses an architecture description language, wherein the architecture model of the software program includes a plurality of components that each model functionality at a level of abstraction and a plurality of connectors that each model communication between two or more of the plurality of components, 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;

determine a plurality of component impacts based on the identified changes by;

identifying, based on the plurality of components and the plurality of connectors included in the architecture model of the software program, components included in the architecture model of the software program impacted by the identified changes,

for each of the identified components, determining a level of difficulty associated with changing the identified component impacted by the identified changes, and

for each of the identified components, determining a degree of effort needed to implement changes to the identified component impacted by the identified changes based on the determined level of difficulty; and

determine an overall impact of implementing the change request based on the determined degree of effort of each of the component impacts, wherein the plurality of components included in the architecture model of the software program are associated keywords; and

wherein identifying, based on the plurality of components and the plurality of connectors included in the architecture model of the software program, components included in the architecture model of the software program impacted by the identified changes comprises;

parsing, from the change request, a keyword;

comparing the parsed keyword from the change request to the keywords associated with the plurality of components included in the architecture model of the software program; and

identifying, based on the comparison, one or more components included in the architecture model of the software program that are associated with a keyword that matches the parsed keyword.

2. 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.

3. 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.

4. 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.

5. 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.

6. The system of claim 1, wherein determining the degree of effort needed to implement changes to the identified component impacted by the identified changes based on the determined level of difficulty comprises using an estimation model to calculate a number of developer hours that correspond to the determined level of difficulty.

7. The system of claim 1:

wherein determining the degree of effort needed to implement changes to the identified component impacted by the identified changes based on the determined level of difficulty comprises determining a number of hours a developer would expend to implement the change request with respect to the identified component; and

wherein the computer code is executable to determine the overall impact of implementing the change request based on the determined degree of effort of each of the component impacts by summing the hours included in the degree of effort for each of the identified components.

8. The system of claim 1:

wherein the computer code is executable to modify the plurality of identified changes based on user input; and

wherein the computer code is executable to determine the plurality of component impacts based on the identified changes by determining the plurality of component impacts based on the modified changes.

9. The system of claim 1, wherein identifying, based on the plurality of components and the plurality of connectors included in the architecture model of the software program, components included in the architecture model of the software program impacted by the identified changes comprises:

determining a change type associated with the change request; and

limiting the identified components included in the architecture model of the software program impacted by the identified changes to those components to which the change type is applicable.

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

accessing an architecture model of the software program that uses an architecture description language, the architecture model including a plurality of components that each model functionality at a level of abstraction and a plurality of connectors that each model communication between two or more of the plurality of components;

determining, with a processor, 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;

determining, with a processor, a plurality of component impacts based on the identified changes by;

identifying, based on the plurality of components and the plurality of connectors included in the architecture model of the software program, components included in the architecture model of the software program impacted by the identified changes,

for each of the identified components, determining a level of difficulty associated with changing the identified component impacted by the identified changes, and

for each of the identified components, determining a degree of effort needed to implement changes to the identified component impacted by the identified changes based on the determined level of difficulty;

determining an overall impact of implementing the change request based on the determined degree of effort of each of the component impacts; and

displaying the overall impact of implementing the change request, wherein the plurality of components included in the architecture model of the software program are associated keywords; and

wherein identifying, based on the plurality of components and the plurality of connectors included in the architecture model of the software program, components included in the architecture model of the software program impacted by the identified changes comprises;

parsing, from the change request, a keyword;

comparing the parsed keyword from the change request to the keywords associated with the plurality of components included in the architecture model of the software program; and

identifying, based on the comparison, one or more components included in the architecture model of the software program that are associated with a keyword that matches the parsed keyword.

11. The method of claim 10, wherein determining the degree of effort includes comparing a number of page navigations described in an impacted component with a predetermined threshold value.

12. The method of claim 10, further comprising creating a task in a project server corresponding to the overall impact of implementing the change request.

13. The method of claim 10, further comprising:

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

identifying the keyword in the change request.

14. The method of claim 13, 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.

15. A non-transitory 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 an architecture model of a software program that uses an architecture description language, the architecture model including a plurality of components that each model functionality at a level of abstraction and a plurality of connectors that each model communication between two or more of the plurality of components;

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

instructions executable to determine a plurality of component impacts based on the identified changes by;

identifying, based on the plurality of components and the plurality of connectors included in the architecture model of the software program, components included in the architecture model of the software program impacted by the identified changes,

for each of the identified components, determining a level of difficulty associated with changing the identified component impacted by the identified changes, and

for each of the identified components, determining a degree of effort needed to implement changes to the identified component impacted by the identified changes based on the determined level of difficulty; and

instructions executable to determine an overall impact of implementing the change request based on the determined degree of effort of each of the component impacts, wherein the plurality of components included in the architecture model of the software program are associated keywords; and

wherein identifying, based on the plurality of components and the plurality of connectors included in the architecture model of the software program, components included in the architecture model of the software program impacted by the identified changes comprises;

parsing, from the change request, a keyword;

comparing the parsed keyword from the change request to the keywords associated with the plurality of components included in the architecture model of the software program; and

identifying, based on the comparison, one or more components included in the architecture model of the software program that are associated with a keyword that matches the parsed keyword.

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

17. The computer-readable medium of claim 16, wherein the 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.

18. The computer-readable medium of claim 16, wherein the degree of the effort is determined based on a comparison of a value of the attribute of the at least one component with a threshold value.

19. The computer-readable medium of claim 16, 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.