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a b s t r a c tContext: In software development, Testing is an important mechanism both to identify defects and assure that completed products work as specified. This is a common practice in single-system development, and continues to hold in Software Product Lines (SPL). Even though extensive research has been done in the SPL Testing field, it is necessary to assess the current state of research and practice, in order to provide practitioners with evidence that enable fostering its further development.Objective: This paper focuses on Testing in SPL and has the following goals: investigate state-of-the-art testing practices, synthesize available evidence, and identify gaps between required techniques and existing approaches, available in the literature. Method: A systematic mapping study was conducted with a set of nine research questions, in which 120 studies, dated from 1993 to 2009, were evaluated. Results: Although several aspects regarding testing have been covered by single-system development approaches, many cannot be directly applied in the SPL context due to specific issues. In addition, particular aspects regarding SPL are not covered by the existing SPL approaches, and when the aspects are covered, the literature just gives brief overviews. This scenario indicates that additional investigation, empirical and practical, should be performed. Conclusion:The results can help to understand the needs in SPL Testing, by identifying points that still require additional investigation, since important aspects regarding particular points of software product lines have not been addressed yet.

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In Software Product Lines (SPL), where a greater variety of products are derived from a common platform and constantly changed and evolved, it is important to manage the SPL variability and the traceability among its artifacts. This paper presents a metamodel which aims to coordinate SPL activities, by managing different SPL phases and their responsibles, and to maintain the traceability and variability among different artifacts. The metamodel was built for a SPL project in a private company working in the medical information management domain, which includes four products encompassing 102 different modules and 840 features. The metamodel is divided into five sub-models: project and risk management, scoping, requirements and testing. It is represented in the UML notation. Organizations using this metamodel as basis for their approaches, can easily understand the relationships between the SPL assets, communicate to the stakeholders, and facilitate the evolution and maintenance of the SPL. The metamodel can also be adapted to the single system development context.

Background: Software product lines and Agile methods have been an effective solution for dealing with the growing complexity of software and handling competitive needs of software organizations. They also share common goals, such as improving productivity, reducing time‐to‐market, decreasing development costs and increasing customer satisfaction. There has been growing interest in whether the integration of Agile and SPL could provide further benefits and solve many of the outstanding issues surrounding software development. Objective: This study investigates the state‐of‐the‐art in Agile SPL approaches, while identifying gaps in current research and synthesizing available evidence. It also provides a basis for a deeper understanding of the issues involved in the integration of Agile and SPL. Method: A mapping study was undertaken to analyze the relation between Agile and SPL methods. A set of four research questions were defined in which the 32 primary studies were evaluated. Results: This study provides insights into the integration of Agile and SPL approaches, it identifies the current gaps in the research, synthesize the available evidence and propose specific Agile methods and practices for integration in SPL. Conclusions: In general, few studies describe the underlying Agile principles being adopted by proposed Agile SPL solutions. The most common Agile practices proposed by the studies came from the XP and Scrum methods, particularly in the pro‐active SPL strategy. We identify certain Agile methods that are being overlooked by the Agile SPL community, and propose specific SPL practices areas suitable for adoption of Agile practices. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.