Computer-Implemented Methods and Systems for Measuring, Estimating, and Managing Economic Outcomes and Technical Debt in Software Systems and Projects: US Patent 11,126,427 B2

By: Daniel J. Sturtevant, Carliss Baldwin, Alan MacCormack, Sunny Ahn and Sean Gilliland

Format:Print
| Language:English

Abstract

An interrelated set of tools and methods is disclosed for: (1) measuring the relationship between software source code attributes (such as code quality, design quality, test quality, and complexity metrics) and software economics outcome metrics (such as maintainability, agility, and cost) experienced by development and maintenance organizations, (2) using this information to project or estimate the level of technical debt in a software codebase, (3) using this information to estimate the financial value of efforts focused on improving the codebase (such as rewriting or refactoring), and (4) using this information to help manage a software development effort over its lifetime so as to improve software economics, business outcomes, and technical debt while doing so.