An Experiment in Software Development Risk Information Analysis

The following report summarizes the results of an experiment that uses terminological structures derived from the application of knowledge summarization, analysis, and visualization (K-SAV) technology to textual data from the Software Engineering Risk Repository (SERR) resident at the Software Engineering Institute. This study evaluates the use of several tools including shared word clustering [Monarch 94] and a co-word analysis software program, leximappe [Teil 92]. The experiment seeks to determine whether an application of co-word analysis to baseline risk assessment data would enable a reduction of the information load while simultaneously providing a succinct but encompassing picture of the risk information within the program. This study is based upon a somewhat limited data set. Nevertheless, the results of this investigation are encouraging and suggest that there may be value and potential for the effective use of co-word analysis and K-SAV technology more generally in risk management. Additional investigations are underway to confirm, alter, or challenge the results.