Impact propagation and risk assessment of requirement changes for software development projects based on design structure matrix

Requirement change is a major source of risk to software development projects. The prediction of requirement changes provides a challenge in software risk management, especially in early stages of software development projects. This paper predicts the risk of change propagation in terms of change propagation probability and change impact. First, the process of software requirement changes is discussed. Then, a probabilistic model based on design structure matrix (DSM) is established to evaluate the risk of change propagation from requirements to software architecture. Furthermore, the proposed model is utilized to estimate the schedule and cost of a software development project. The model supports the prediction of potential risk of change propagation for each component, which is able to accommodate module reorganization to avoid unnecessary redesigns. Thus it helps software project managers make a choice between different architecture candidates based on requirement changes. Finally, the proposed model is verified via computational experiments, in which sensitivity analysis is applied to validate the reliability of the model.

► We analyzed iterative relation between requirement changes and software architecture.
► We defined change propagation risk by propagation probability and change impact.
► We built a probabilistic model based on DSM to evaluate change propagation risk.
► We compared change propagation risk of different probability strength variations.
► We estimated impact of requirement change on project schedule and cost.