Patent ID: 8448127

Claim:
A software forecasting system comprising: a user interface displayed to a user on a display of a computing system; and a software forecasting tool executed by a processor of the computing system and operable to: receive, from a software cost estimation tool, a first software development metric indicative of a particular aspect of a current software development project, the software development metric generated from one or more first attributes associated with the current software development project, wherein the first software development metric comprises a number of rework hours per defect metric, wherein the number of rework hours per defect metric is generated based on a particular software development team that is working on the current software development project; generate a second software development metric comprising a number of rework hours per defect metric according to one or more second attributes associated with the particular software development team and one or more previous software development projects, the second software development metric indicative of the particular aspect, wherein generating the second software development metric comprises: calculating, by a process, environment, and people (PEP) component of the software forecasting tool, a first numerical score comprising a lagging indicator indicating a collected average number of rework hours per defect; calculating, by a weighted score component of the software forecasting tool, a second numerical score comprising a weighted score for defect removal by peer review, wherein the second numerical score is calculated based on the first numerical score; and calculating, by a defect density component of the software forecasting tool, a third numerical score comprising a defect density of the current software development project, wherein the third numerical score is calculated based on the second numerical score, and wherein the second software development metric is calculated based on the third numerical score; calculate a difference between the first software development metric and the second software development metric by a comparison component of the software forecasting tool; and display the difference on the user interface.