Techniques providing a software fitting assessment

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.

What is claimed is: 
     
         1 . A method, comprising:
 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.   
     
     
         2 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein the software functions are described using at least text. 
     
     
         3 . The method of  claim 2 , wherein the one or more specified requirements comprise text describing the corresponding requirements, and wherein mining further comprises performing text mining of the software functions in the repository to match the one or more specified requirements with the software functions. 
     
     
         4 . The method of  claim 3 , wherein in response to a match between a selected one of the one or more specified requirements and a specific one of the software functions, storing the match as a stored match between the selected specified requirement and the specific software function. 
     
     
         5 . The method of  claim 3 , wherein at least some of the software functions are described though artifacts and wherein performing text matching further comprises performing text mining of the artifacts for the at least some of the software functions in the repository to match the one or more specified requirements with the software functions. 
     
     
         6 . The method of  claim 5 , wherein the artifacts comprise one or more of product documentation of a software product having the software function, presentations about the software product, customization details of the software product, or configurations of the software product. 
     
     
         7 . The method of  claim 3 , 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. 
     
     
         8 . The method of  claim 7 , 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. 
     
     
         9 . The method of  claim 8 , wherein one or more of the requirements accumulated from previous projects comprise one or more references to equivalent text forms. 
     
     
         10 . The method of  claim 8 , wherein 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. 
     
     
         11 . The method of  claim 10 , 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. 
     
     
         12 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein for a particular one of the one or more specified requirements, the automatically matching does not find a match, and wherein the method further comprises 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. 
     
     
         13 . The method of  claim 1 , further comprising, 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. 
     
     
         14 . The method of  claim 13 , further comprising:
 in response to a rejection of the match, removal from the repository of a mapping between the specified requirement and the rejected one or more software functions;   in response to editing of the match, editing a mapping in the repository to correspond to the editing of the match; or   in response to creating a new match, adding a mapping in the repository corresponding to the new match.   
     
     
         15 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein the results comprise specified requirements and the corresponding matched software functions. 
     
     
         16 . The method of  claim 15 , 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. 
     
     
         17 . The method of  claim 1 , further comprising 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. 
     
     
         18 . The method of  claim 17 , further comprising 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. 
     
     
         19 . The method as in  claim 1 , 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. 
     
     
         20 . The method of  claim 19 , 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 method further comprises 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. 
     
     
         21 . The method as in  claim 19 , 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 method further comprises comparing the one or more specified requirements for the specified project with stored requirements for stored projects, indicating to the user one or more recommendations of one or more “cross-sell” requirements in response to one or more requirements not submitted by the user for the specified project being stored in one or more stored projects that are determined to be similar to the specified project. 
     
     
         22 . The method as in  claim 1 , wherein the one or more specified requirements have been submitted by a user, and wherein the method further comprises indicating to the user one or more recommendations of one or more requirements not submitted by the user in the one or more specified requirements but supported by functions that have already been matched to satisfy the one or more specified requirements. 
     
     
         23 . The method as in  claim 1 , further comprising determining popularity of one or more requirements by performing one or more queries across projects stored in the repository, and indicating the determined popularity and corresponding popular one or more requirements to a user. 
     
     
         24 . A computer program product, comprising:
 a computer readable storage medium having computer readable program code embodied therewith, the computer readable code comprising:   code for 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   code for outputting by the computer system one or more results of the matching.