Patent ID: 7908583

Claim:
A method comprising: storing, in a computer-readable memory, specification requirements of a software specification and change history for the specification requirements; and generating traceability links responsive to the change history, each traceability link indicating that for a first one of the specification requirements a second specification requirement is dependent upon the first specification requirement, and wherein generating each traceability link comprises: automatically performing evidentiary analysis of the change history; and automatically generating a coupling value for the traceability link based on the evidentiary analysis of the change history, the coupling value based on at least one of i) a likelihood of the second specification requirement changing responsive to a change of the first specification requirement or ii) a degree of change for the second specification requirement, wherein the degree of change is responsive to a change of the first specification requirement; wherein the change history includes a number of times that the first specification requirement has changed and a number of times that the second specification requirement has changed due to the first specification requirement changing, and wherein generating the coupling value for the traceability link comprises determining the likelihood based on a proportion of: the times the second specification requirement has changed due to the first specification requirement changing; and the number of times the first specification requirement has changed; and storing the traceability links with the corresponding coupling values in the computer-readable memory.