https://www.mdu.se/

mdu.sePublications
Change search
CiteExportLink to record
Permanent link

Direct link
Cite
Citation style
  • apa
  • ieee
  • modern-language-association-8th-edition
  • vancouver
  • Other style
More styles
Language
  • de-DE
  • en-GB
  • en-US
  • fi-FI
  • nn-NO
  • nn-NB
  • sv-SE
  • Other locale
More languages
Output format
  • html
  • text
  • asciidoc
  • rtf
Towards a Capability Model for Release Planning of Software Intensive Systems
Mälardalen University, School of Innovation, Design and Engineering.
2008 (English)Doctoral thesis, comprehensive summary (Other scientific)
Abstract [en]

Release planning is an early product development activity concerned with deciding which features and quality improvements that should be pursued in product development projects, i.e., it is an activity which in large parts decide how the development budget of a company is allocated.

This thesis investigates release planning for long-lived software intensivesystems; systems which contain software, electronics, and mechanics, and which have a life-cycle of 10-20 years. In performing release planning for these kind of systems, the existing system, including its architecture, often represent a large investment which has impact on which features and quality improvements that are cost-efficient to include in a future release. However, in industry today, little attention is given to the existing system during planning, resulting in decisions being based on uncertain information, and thereby increasing the risk of problems in the development projects.

This thesis is based on a multiple case study involving seven industrialcompanies developing and producing long-lived software intensive systems. There are several contributions in this thesis, aimed at understanding and improving the release planning process: (1) validation of previous research related to key-aspects for release planning including identification of short- and long-term planning as a new key-aspect; (2) the capture of state-of-the-practice for release planning in industry; (3) a proposal for a capability model for release planning, which can be used to assess the capabilities of a company's release planning process, but also for identifying process improvement possibilities; and (4) a process for how to decide the balance between investments in features and quality improvements, developed based on the practices used at two of the most capable companies in the study. Finding such a balance is important since adding new features may attract new potential customers, while improving the quality for existing customers can reduce costs of poor quality.

 

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
Västerås: Mälardalens högskola , 2008.
Series
Mälardalen University Press Dissertations, ISSN 1651-4238 ; 67
Keywords
software architecture
National Category
Computer Sciences
Research subject
Datavetenskap
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:mdh:diva-1206ISBN: 978-91-86135-06-5 (print)OAI: oai:DiVA.org:mdh-1204DiVA, id: diva2:37618
Public defence
2008-11-21, Gamma, Högskoleplan 1, Västerås, Mälardalens Högskola, 09:00 (Swedish)
Opponent
Supervisors
Available from: 2008-10-13 Created: 2008-10-08 Last updated: 2018-01-12Bibliographically approved
List of papers
1. Key Aspects of Software Release Planning in Industry
Open this publication in new window or tab >>Key Aspects of Software Release Planning in Industry
2008 (English)In: Proceedings of the Australian Software Engineering Conference, ASWEC, IEEE Computer Society , 2008, p. 320-329Conference paper, Published paper (Refereed)
Abstract [en]

Software release planning is the process of deciding what to include in future release(s) of a product. Basically the problem can be seen as a company-wide optimization problem involving many stakeholders where the goal is to maximize utilization of the often limited resources of a company and turn them into business benefit. Saliu and Ruhe have proposed a set of key aspects for release planning methods, of which only a subset have been validated in industry. In this paper we use the Saliu and Ruhe key aspects as a starting point for identifying key aspects of release planning. To do this we have performed a multiple case study involving 7 international industrial companies, all producers of software intensive products. Our contribution is (1) a more strict meaning of a release planning key aspect, (2) validation of some of the aspects proposed by Saliu and Ruhe, and (3) an extension of the key aspects. We also capture state-of-the-practice for release planning in industry.

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
IEEE Computer Society, 2008
National Category
Computer Sciences
Research subject
Computer Science
Identifiers
urn:nbn:se:mdh:diva-1393 (URN)10.1109/ASWEC.2008.4483220 (DOI)000255154800033 ()2-s2.0-50249102712 (Scopus ID)978-0-7695-3100-7 (ISBN)
Conference
19th Australian Software Engineering Conference, ASWEC 2008; Perth, WA; Australia; 25 March 2008 through 28 March 2008
Available from: 2008-10-17 Created: 2008-10-17 Last updated: 2018-08-21Bibliographically approved
2. Towards a Capability Model for the Software Release Planning Process — Based on a Multiple Industrial Case Study
Open this publication in new window or tab >>Towards a Capability Model for the Software Release Planning Process — Based on a Multiple Industrial Case Study
2008 (English)In: In Proc. 9th International Conference on Product Focused Software Process Improvement, Berlin / Heidelberg: Springer , 2008, p. 117-132Conference paper, Published paper (Refereed)
Abstract [en]

Software release planning is an important activity for effectively identifying the customer needs generating best business, especially for incremental software development. In this paper we propose a capability model for improving the release planning process of an organization. Using this model it is possible to 1) determine the capabilities of an organization’s release planning process, and 2) identify areas for improvement. The model is based on empirical data from a multiple case study involving 7 industrial companies, all being producers of software intensive systems. We also provide examples of how the proposed capability model can be applied using the companies from the study.

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
Berlin / Heidelberg: Springer, 2008
Series
Lecture Notes in Computer Science, ISSN 1611-3349 ; 5089/2008
National Category
Computer Sciences
Research subject
Computer Science
Identifiers
urn:nbn:se:mdh:diva-1394 (URN)10.1007/978-3-540-69566-0_12 (DOI)000257182700009 ()2-s2.0-48249142748 (Scopus ID)978-3-540-69564-6 (ISBN)
Conference
9th International Conference on Product-Focused Software Process Improvement, PROFES 2008; Monte Porzio Catone; Italy; 23 June 2008 through 25 June 2008
Available from: 2008-10-17 Created: 2008-10-17 Last updated: 2018-08-21Bibliographically approved
3. Importance of Software Architecture during Release Planning
Open this publication in new window or tab >>Importance of Software Architecture during Release Planning
2008 (English)In: 7th IEEE/IFIP Working Conference on Software Architecture, WICSA 2008, IEEE Computer Society , 2008, p. 253-256Conference paper, Published paper (Refereed)
Abstract [en]

Release planning is the process of deciding what to include in future release(s) of a product. In this paper we look at how software architects are involved during release planning in industry today, and how architectural issues are considered during this phase.

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
IEEE Computer Society, 2008
National Category
Computer Sciences
Research subject
Computer Science
Identifiers
urn:nbn:se:mdh:diva-1392 (URN)10.1109/WICSA.2008.10 (DOI)000254145600027 ()2-s2.0-49949101181 (Scopus ID)978-0-7695-3092-5 (ISBN)
Conference
7th IEEE/IFIP Working Conference on Software Architecture, WICSA 2008; Vancouver, BC; Canada; 18 February 2008 through 22 February 2008
Available from: 2008-10-17 Created: 2008-10-17 Last updated: 2018-01-12Bibliographically approved
4. A Method for Balancing Short- and Long-Term Investments: Quality vs. Features
Open this publication in new window or tab >>A Method for Balancing Short- and Long-Term Investments: Quality vs. Features
2008 (English)In: EUROMICRO 2008 - Proceedings of the 34th EUROMICRO Conference on Software Engineering and Advanced Applications, SEAA 2008, IEEE Computer Society , 2008, p. 175-182Conference paper, Published paper (Refereed)
Abstract [en]

There are a number of conflicting forces between shortand long-term considerations for software release planning in industry. For example, from a business perspective it is usually desired with a short time-to-market. However, from software quality perspective it is usually desired to have a longer time-to-market such that the proper architectural mechanisms can be put in place, which in the long-term reduce development cost and addresses quality aspects. In this paper we outline some of these conflicting forces, with a focus on long-lived systems, and examplify how they impact product quality and time-to-market. In this paper we propose a simple, but useful, extensionof the release planning process that addresses these conflicting forces. The method is inspired from empirical data captured in a multiple case study involving 7 companies.

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
IEEE Computer Society, 2008
National Category
Engineering and Technology
Identifiers
urn:nbn:se:mdh:diva-1395 (URN)10.1109/SEAA.2008.22 (DOI)000262984400022 ()2-s2.0-60349124006 (Scopus ID)978-0-7695-3276-9 (ISBN)
Conference
EUROMICRO 2008 - Proceedings of the 34th EUROMICRO Conference on Software Engineering and Advanced Applications, SEAA 2008; Parma; Italy; 3 September 2008 through 5 September 2008
Available from: 2008-10-17 Created: 2008-10-17 Last updated: 2014-05-22Bibliographically approved

Open Access in DiVA

fulltext(602 kB)1367 downloads
File information
File name FULLTEXT02.pdfFile size 602 kBChecksum SHA-512
f3293f00b70f7d513f0f14bf15d3159418effe2c7cd93eed51c36076b58f735781ba9391643a1aa662d6345bd2ec4ebf660dd401d5d515fed0ea1b77bd4a0c76
Type fulltextMimetype application/pdf

Search in DiVA

By author/editor
Lindgren, Markus
By organisation
School of Innovation, Design and Engineering
Computer Sciences

Search outside of DiVA

GoogleGoogle Scholar
Total: 1408 downloads
The number of downloads is the sum of all downloads of full texts. It may include eg previous versions that are now no longer available

isbn
urn-nbn

Altmetric score

isbn
urn-nbn
Total: 628 hits
CiteExportLink to record
Permanent link

Direct link
Cite
Citation style
  • apa
  • ieee
  • modern-language-association-8th-edition
  • vancouver
  • Other style
More styles
Language
  • de-DE
  • en-GB
  • en-US
  • fi-FI
  • nn-NO
  • nn-NB
  • sv-SE
  • Other locale
More languages
Output format
  • html
  • text
  • asciidoc
  • rtf