Patent ID: 7092895

Claim:
A method for assessing stability of a structure of a project application, the method comprising: collecting data of the project application, the data being structured as branches and leaves for generating leaf and branch metrics; wherein the project application is a requirements document; computing from the project application data the leaf and branch metrics; computing at least two project application progress parameters based upon the leaf and branch metrics for numerically describing elements of the project application; wherein the project application progress parameters include at least one of the following: total number of branches; total number of leaves; number of modifications performed on the branches; number of modifications performed on the leaves; average age of leaves in the project; and average age of branches in the project; computing regression parameters based upon the at least two project application progress parameters wherein the two application project progress parameters are based upon the leaf and branch metrics; computing correlation coefficients utilizing the regression parameters, the correlation coefficients describing the strength of the correlation of the at least two project application progress parameters with the leaf and branch metrics for indicating the stability of the structure of the project application; outputting data records to graphically represent the stability of the structure of the project application; wherein the branches are representative of structure components of the requirements document, and the leaves are representative of content components of the requirements document; wherein the data of the project application comprises text; and wherein the steps of computing the at least two project progress parameters, computing the regression parameters, computing the correlation coefficients, collecting data of the project, and outputting the data records are performed over a computer network.