Software requirements metrics and evaluation process
First Claim
1. A method for estimating a metric of a product from a description of the product, said description of the product being in an arbitrary degree of detail, said method comprising the steps ofseparating said description of said product into a plurality of separate single requirements for the product to provide as described in said description of said product, assigning a hierarchy level to respective ones of said separate requirements, detecting key words in respective ones of said requirements, determining a value corresponding to a said key word and a said hierarchy level of the separate single requirement in which said key word is detected, adjusting said value based on said hierarchy level relative to a number of hierarchy levels found in said description to derive an adjusted value for said key word detected by said detecting step, and computing a total of a plurality of said adjusted values.
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Abstract
A system and method for estimating a metric of a proposed product from a document describing the product in an arbitrary degree of detail provides accuracy comparable to a function point assessment of a fully detailed document by parsing a document into a plurality of lines in an outline form and assigning a hierarchy to each line. Values or weights are determined for each of a relatively small plurality of key words in accordance with the key word and the hierarchy level of the line in the parsed document in which the key word is found. An adjustment is made based on a category of the key word such as nouns and verbs and the hierarchy level of the lines as compared with the number of hierarchy levels found in the document. Further adjustments may be made for subject matter domain of the product and the source or author of the document.
150 Citations
14 Claims
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1. A method for estimating a metric of a product from a description of the product, said description of the product being in an arbitrary degree of detail, said method comprising the steps of
separating said description of said product into a plurality of separate single requirements for the product to provide as described in said description of said product, assigning a hierarchy level to respective ones of said separate requirements, detecting key words in respective ones of said requirements, determining a value corresponding to a said key word and a said hierarchy level of the separate single requirement in which said key word is detected, adjusting said value based on said hierarchy level relative to a number of hierarchy levels found in said description to derive an adjusted value for said key word detected by said detecting step, and computing a total of a plurality of said adjusted values.
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7. A system for estimating a metric of a product by processing a document descriptive of the product, said document describing the product in an arbitrary degree of detail, said system including
means for parsing said document into requirements the product is to provide, as described in said document, in hierarchy levels, means for detecting a key word in respective ones of said requirements, means for determining a value corresponding to said key word and a said hierarchy level of the separate single requirement in which said key word is detected, means for adjusting said value based on said hierarchy level relative to a number of hierarchy levels found in said document to derive an adjusted value for said key word detected by said detecting step, and means for computing a total of a plurality of said adjusted values.
Specification