Reference framework for software product management

Several case studies potential customers, competitors and analysts, such have shown that introducing product lines organizations as Gartner and Aberdeen.

Numerous trends may be improves performance [8] [9] [44]. They are most recognizable in the market, either in an explicit way popular in telecommunication organizations [33], but the by one of the market players, or in an implicit way last years, also the software industry pays more and more by product management.

Some research has - Most companies have different kinds of Partners: 1 been done to tool support for product lines. Product lifecycle management is a distribution partners, selling the product. In [27] the term roadmapping is used in resources throughout the entire product lifecycle [1]. This two perspectives: forecasting and planning. Forecasting is a key process in decision making about the product concerns technology or market trends; and planning portfolio.

Also partnering and contracting are important concerns products, product lines, resources or the entire issues in product management [7]. We use the definition of [39]: a roadmap is a Looking at the reference framework, we see Portfolio document that provides a layout of the product releases to management on top. It contains four main processes: come over a time frame of three to five years.

Input is received from the Company board, In the reference framework, product roadmapping Market and Partner companies. This input is used to identify themes and 4. Product roadmapping core assets that can be used later on in the requirements organization. This information is gathered and described In [47], roadmapping is called a popular metaphor for in the product roadmap. Requirements management relationships over a period of time.

It is complex due to dependencies on other related products even from Requirements management entails the activities of partners , technology changes, and the distributed gathering, identifying and revising incoming development [13]. Roadmapping has, just like product requirements and organizing them by keeping in mind line management, its origins in a sector distinct from the mutual dependencies, existing core assets, product lines software industry, the manufacturing industry, where it is and themes.

In [36], the following core which software is made available to, and obtained by, its requirements engineering activities are recognized: users [25]. Core functions in this process are eliciting requirements, modeling and analyzing requirements prioritizing; release planning; constructing requirements, communicating requirements, agreeing and validating a release requirements document; and requirements, and evolving requirements.

Especially scope management analyzing requirements costs a lot of time in product Especially on the area of release planning, where the set software companies, due to the often high requirements of requirements for the next release is determined, much rate, and the different sources of requirements.

An research has been carried out. Examples are release example is the use of linguistic engineering to link planning using integer linear programming [1], the customer wishes to requirements [35]. Customers cannot expect that all their techniques using requirement interdependencies [11]. In [31] several improvements are suggested to with the product requirements prioritization.

Not only the this practice. In [20], the requirements process in product management is responsible for this, but also the industry projects is investigated and the results show that other stakeholders can influence this process. After the four techniques improve schedule performance, if used in prioritization, product requirements are selected that will parallel: installing of an effective core team for each be implemented in the next release.

This can be done in product release; focusing on the product-lifecycle on multiple ways: one can choose the product requirements upstream gate reviews; evaluating requirements from with the highest priority or use integer linear various perspectives; and assuring a dependable portfolio programming to estimate the best set of requirements.

During this process, also the resources have to be applied The position of requirements management in the in the calculations. When the product requirements are reference framework is between product roadmapping selected, a release definition is written that is validated by and release planning. The process starts with gathering all different stakeholders. A business case is sent to the requirements from within the company and from external company board. When this has been approved by the stakeholders.

The requirements gathered and organized board, a launch preparation package is constructed and into product requirements. Product requirements are sent to the stakeholders. Case study rewriting the requirements in understandable product requirements. Then, the requirements are organized per In finding confirmation for the validity of the identified product and core asset.

Also, the mutual dependencies context, activities and relations depicted in the reference between the different product requirements are described. We source for our analysis. In the mentioned period the use a similar distinction. However, we make a distinction product manager received about 1, emails related to between requirements and product requirements.

Requirements refer to all incoming wishes and change requests. This are not only market requirements, but also 5. After an organizational repositioning, the management board of the ERP vendor decided to focus on providing add-on products, so-called solutions, next to ERP products.

A number of detailed e-procurement, e-invoicing and e-kanban, to be integrated requirements became clear from the previous via one Supplier Trading eXchange STX.

Note that at implementation at Komatsu. In addition, communication the start, some of the functionality was already available with the support and consultancy departments provided in existing products e.

At the end of , an the ERP-product, e-procurement in the E-Procurement early version of a release definition was communicated product , while other functionality needed to be created. In one of the e-mails the product manager was launch of the STX: e. Note that product management areas portfolio management, this particular implementation has been described in a product roadmapping, requirements management and case study in a separate paper [49].

Some areas and A potential partner company was approached to some topics within each of the areas were more subject in further enhance functionality regarding the so-called e-mails than others. In general, in many e-mails dealt with from development. This can be explained by the fact that themes projection over future anticipated releases of the development took place in another country than the STX.

This included communication with the management country of origin of the product manager. Much board of the company. The workbench is divided into four main modules, all 6. The Software Product Management intended to aid the product manager with his daily routines.

The four modules are: requirements module, Workbench release planning module, roadmap module, and product portfolio module, their names corresponding to the Product management is key to product software functionality they provide. The workbench is designed for different user types. Although there are several tools supporting part of the The product manager is the main user, but there are three product management functionality, they do not provide a other users that are able to login into the system, all with coherent and complete set of features dedicated to their own privileges.

These three users are: administrator, software product management. To support the product core asset developer, and employee. Product software manager, we propose the software Product Management companies usually have multiple software products all Workbench. The main task of the administrator is to start new products or 6. Existing support tools new product releases. When a new core asset has been identified, the core asset developer can login into the Several portfolio management support tools exist, e.

An based application for portfolio management. ReleasePlanner [40] covers part of it. ReleasePlanner is a web-based system solution to enable intelligent planning, 6. Architecture priority and road-mapping decisions. ReqSimile [35] is a requirements tool multiple users with different roles, and are built in a that supports the linkage process in large-scale distributed way.

In the workbench the difficulties are requirements management, by using a linguistic found in the great amounts of requirements that have to engineering approach. The system, and more. ReleasePlanner [40], earlier mentioned in with programming the business logic.

For technical this section, is a uses integer linear programming and information of J2EE see [6]. In [43], Szyperski provides a prioritization of features for purposes of release planning. This tool focuses on but is not limited to software Figure 3 gives a high level overview of the companies.

In the Release Planner Provotype [11] a architecture. The tool uses two types of clients: a web selection algorithm is implemented that presents a client and an application client.

Application clients run number of valid and good release suggestions. An integrated solution affecting the server. Enterprise Java Beans EJB form the core of the J2EE platform that makes the life of an To provide operational support for software product enterprise programmer easier. Two types of EJBs are management, we propose a tool: the Software Product used in the architecture, namely entity and session beans. Management Workbench. As explained further, it One entity bean represents one row in a database table or supports portfolio management, product roadmapping, a row in the result of a join operation.

Two types of release planning and requirements management, in an session beans exist, which are stateful and stateless integrated way. A stateless session components can be cached for other components that may bean offers its services to multiple clients. There is no tight coupling between the components, which makes the tool easy to change. If for example the presentation logic has to be adapted, only the view has to be changed leaving the other components unharmed.

It shows the Figure 3. High level architecture requirements window, in which the product manager can link requirements with product requirements that refer to The response time, the amount of time it takes for the the same functionality [35].

At the top of the screen, a list system to process a request from the outside, is of great of product requirements is depicted. A product importance [23]. The product manager uses requirement can be selected in order to find matching functionalities of the tool that require a lot of processing requirements from the requirements list at the bottom of time, so he is the only one able to login into the the screen.

After the system has found all the possible application client to execute these calculations. The web candidates, the requirements are displayed together with tier handles all the requests generated by the web client the source, similarity ratio and the option to link this and directs these requests to the controller beans that are requirement to a product requirement.

When the preferred deployed into the EJB tier, which provide coarse grained requirements are selected, the linkage can be saved. The application client accesses the controller beans directly.

Note that the web tier and the EJB tier do not have to reside on the same machine. Conclusions and further research The extendibility of the tool is also an important issue. As mentioned before there are now four main modules, In this article we discussed the difference between but the tool should be able to be extended with minimum product management and software product management, effort to provide other kinds of functionality.

Figure 4 and the need for operational support for the latter. By shows a small part of the full architecture, but captures performing field interviews and discussions with product some of the patterns used.

Furthermore, we provided an overview of state-of-the-art literature on software product management. By performing a case study, we found confirmation of the validity of the identified context, processes and relations in the reference framework for software product management. Finally, we proposed the Software Product Figure 4. Requirements administrator module Management Workbench, which integrates several software product management areas.

This workbench is The figure shows part of the requirements module, where currently being developed. When it is finished, several incoming requirements are connected to product industrial case studies will be performed to test the requirements. Remote calls and calls from the web tier to functionality. The system uses transfer objects framework for product software management is a first that capture as much data that the client possibly wants to step to position this important industrial domain in the get his hands on, instead of getting one piece of data at filed of scientific research in requirements engineering.

In the time at the cost of one remote call every time. It is efficient to extract this domains. Brownsword, P. Abramovici and O. Soeg, Status and Development [10] P. Bourque and R. Dupuis, ed. Engineering ITM , Germany, Brinkkemper, G. Carlshamre, B. Alur, J. Crupi, and D. Prentice Hall PTR, Ardis, N.

Daley, D. Hoffman, H. Siy, and D. Weiss, Saddle River, NK, Clements and L. Patterns and Practice. Berander and A. Aurum and C. Wohlin eds. Software products include pure and embedded software and software as a service.

They are special because of their small life-cycle cost, great flexibility, and high rate of change. It is built upon a reference architecture framework, a curriculum, and a glossary. This website uses cookies to improve your experience.

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