Techniques providing a software fitting assessment

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-9009193-B2
Application number	US-201213611114-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Sep 12, 2012
Priority date	Aug 17, 2012
Publication date	Apr 14, 2015
Grant date	Apr 14, 2015

Abstract

Techniques are presented for providing a software fitting assessment. The techniques may be performed by methods, apparatus, and/or computer program products. The techniques include automatically matching on a computer system one or more specified requirements for a project with one or more software functions stored in a repository. The automatically matching includes mining the repository in order to match requirements. The repository includes software functions, requirements accumulated from previous projects, and results of stored matches between the software functions and the requirements accumulated from previous projects. The techniques include outputting by the computer system one or more results of the matching.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. An apparatus, comprising:
one or more memories comprising computer readable code; and
one or more processors in response to execution of the computer readable code causing the apparatus to perform at least the following:
automatically matching on a computer system one or more specified requirements for a project with one or more software functions stored in a repository, the automatically matching comprising mining the repository in order to match requirements, where the repository comprises software functions, requirements accumulated from previous projects, and results of stored matches between the software functions and the requirements accumulated from previous projects; and
outputting by the computer system one or more results of the matching, wherein the one or more processors in response to execution of the computer readable code further cause the apparatus to perform at least the following:
subsequent to outputting the one or more results, providing a consultant an opportunity to reject a match between a specified requirement and one or more software functions, edit the match, create a new match, or accept the match:
wherein in response to rejecting the match, removal from the repository of a mapping between the specified requirement and the rejected one or more software functions;
wherein in response to editing the match, editing a mapping in the repository to correspond to the editing of the match; or
wherein in response to creating a new match, adding a mapping in the repository corresponding to the new match.

2. An apparatus, comprising:
one or more memories comprising computer readable code; and
one or more processors in response to execution of the computer readable code causing the apparatus to perforin at least the following:
automatically matching on a computer system one or more specified requirements for a project with one or more software functions stored in a repository, the automatically matching comprising mining the repository in order to match requirements, where the repository comprises software functions, requirements accumulated from previous projects, and results of stored matches between the software functions and the requirements accumulated from previous projects; and
outputting by the computer system one or more results of the matching, wherein for a particular one of the one or more specified requirements, the automatically matching does not find a match, and wherein the one or more processors in response to execution of the computer readable code further cause the apparatus to perform at least the following: presenting the particular specified requirement to a consultant for a manual matching, and storing a result of the manual matching as one of the results of stored matches between the software functions and the requirements accumulated, from previous projects.

3. The apparatus of claim 2 , wherein requirements accumulated from previous projects are also at least partially described by text, and wherein performing text mining further comprises performing text mining of the requirements accumulated from previous projects to match the one or more specified requirements with the requirements accumulated from previous projects.

4. The apparatus of claim 3 , wherein text mining further comprises performing text mining of the requirements accumulated from previous projects to match the one or more specified requirements with same or similar requirements accumulated from the previous projects.

5. The apparatus of claim 4 , wherein one or more of the requirements accumulated from previous projects comprise one or more references to equivalent text forms.

6. The apparatus of claim 4 , wherein the one or more processors in response to execution of the computer readable code further cause the apparatus to perform at least the following: in response to multiple similar requirements being found from the requirements accumulated from previous projects to match a particular one of the one or more specified requirements, but wherein the multiple similar requirements correspond to multiple different functions, providing a consultant with an option to make a decision as to which of the multiple different functions are most appropriate for satisfying the particular requirement and storing any results of the decision in the repository.

7. The apparatus of claim 6 , wherein providing a consultant with an option make a decision further comprises presenting a message on a user interface of a display in order to have the consultant choose which of the multiple different functions are the most appropriate function or functions for satisfying the particular requirement.

8. The apparatus of claim 2 , wherein for a particular one of the one or more specified requirements, the automatically matching does not find a match, and wherein the one or more processors in response to execution of the computer readable code further cause the apparatus to perform at least the following: presenting the particular specified requirement to a consultant for a manual matching, and storing a result of the manual matching as one of the results of stored matches between the software functions and the requirements accumulated from previous projects.

9. The apparatus of claim 2 , wherein the results comprise specified requirements and the corresponding matched software functions.

10. The apparatus of claim 9 , wherein the repository further comprises software products and mapping between the software products and corresponding software functions, and wherein the results further comprise indications of software products corresponding to the matched software functions.

11. The apparatus of claim 2 , wherein the one or more processors in response to execution of the computer readable code further cause the apparatus to perform at least the following: proposing functions to address one or more stray requirements not satisfied by any existing software functions along with proposed cost estimates and a timetable for developing the one or more stray requirements as customized software.

12. The apparatus of claim 11 , wherein the one or more processors in response to execution of the computer readable code further cause the apparatus to perform at least the following: tracking projects having the one or more stray requirements, and, in response to a number of tracked projects meeting a threshold, communicating to vendors a proposal to develop the one or more stray requirements as one or more product software functions.

13. The apparatus of claim 2 , wherein the one or more processors in response to execution of the computer readable code further cause the apparatus to perform at least the following: storing one or more attributes of a project in the repository, where the attributes comprise one or more of industry in which the project takes place, geography in which the project takes place, or market capitalization of a company performing the project.

14. The apparatus of claim 13 , wherein the project is a specified project submitted by a user and the one or more specified requirements have been submitted by the user, and wherein the one or more processors in response to execution of the computer readable code further cause the apparatus to perform at least the following: comparing the one or more specified requirements for the specified project with stored requirements for stored projects, and indicating to the user one or more recommendations of one or more requirements based on a comparison of the one or more specified requirements with requirements of previous projects whose attributes are similar to the specified project.

Assignees

• Callery Matthew J
• Desmond Michael
• Krasikov Sophia
• Ossher Harold L
• Schonberg Edith
• Srinivasan Harini
• IBM

Inventors

• Callery Matthew J
• Desmond Michael
• Krasikov Sophia
• Ossher Harold L
• Schonberg Edith
• Srinivasan Harini

Classifications

• G06Q10/0631

  Resource planning, allocation, distributing or scheduling for enterprises or organisations · CPC title

• G06F8/36 Primary

  Software reuse · CPC title