Business-driven product planning using feature vectors and increments

2013 IEEE Sixth International Conference on Cloud Computing

2013

Abstract-SaaS cloud computing, in contrast to packaged products, enables permanent contact between users of a software product and the product-owning company. When planning the development and evolution of a software product, a product manager depends on reliable information about feature attractiveness. So far, planning decisions were based on stakeholder opinion and the customer's willingness to buy. Whether or not a feature actually is used was out of consideration.Analytics that measure the interaction between users and the SaaS gives product managers unprecedented access to information about product usage. To understand whether and how SaaS analytics can be used for product planning decision, we performed 17 in-depth interviews with experienced managers of SaaS products and analyzed the results analyzed with a mixed-method strategy. The empirical results characterize the relevance of a broad range of analytics for product planning decisions, and the strengths and limitations of an analytics-based product planning approach.

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Analytics for Product Planning: In-Depth Interview Study with SaaS Product Managers

Fotrousi

Izadyan²,

2013 IEEE Sixth International Conference on Cloud Computing

2013

“…AND relationships [13] can be exploited to group requirements into features. Feature vectors [27] can be built by exploiting REQUIRES dependencies. Features that have the same super-feature stand in an OR relationship.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Enhanced Cart Display is such a sub-feature to the super-feature Sales. A chain of REQUIRES dependencies that connects the root with a leaf is called a feature vector [27]. Such a vector captures the foreseen levels of implementing a functional or non-functional concern of the software solution.…”

Section: Feature Trees For Release Planningmentioning

confidence: 99%

Release Planning with Feature Trees: Industrial Case

Requirements Engineering: Foundation for Software Quality

Schumacher

2012

Abstract. [Context and motivation] Requirements catalogues for software release planning are often not complete and homogeneous. Current release planning approaches, however, assume such commitment to detail -at least implicitly. [Question/problem] We evaluate how to relax these expectations, while at the same time reducing release planning effort and increasing decisionmaking flexibility. [Principal ideas/results] Feature trees capture AND, OR, and REQUIRES relationships between requirements. Such requirements structuring can be used to hide incompleteness and to support abstraction. [Contribution] The paper describes how to utilize feature trees for planning the releases of an evolving software solution and evaluates the effects of the approach on effort, decision-making, and trust with an industrial case.Keywords: features, abstraction, release planning, roadmapping, case study. IntroductionSoftware releases are planned by allocating requirements to development projects [1]. A strategic release plan aligns the development of an evolving software solution with market and stakeholder needs, company objectives, and constraints such as time and resources. Release planning is a central concern in iterative development, where multiple iterations, rather than a single project, are defined [2]. Release planning involves the following steps [3]. Requirements are elicited and specified. Criteria [4] are defined to evaluate and prioritize requirements [5]. Releases are then scoped by allocating the prioritized requirements to development projects. The resulting release plans are implemented, delivered, and analyzed with post-release reflections [6].Requirements that enter release planning are often of low quality [7]. Their homogeneity [8], completeness, and understanding [9] are hard to ensure due to the limited effort invested before a development project is funded. This situation contradicts with the assumptions of release planning approaches that scope projects simply by prioritizing and allocating available requirements. Consequently, the results are not trusted and not used for guiding ensuing development steps [10].Release Planning with Feature Trees: Industrial Case 289 This paper describes in detail how to hide the requirements-related problems by structuring the release planning inputs. The approach, whose initial ideas were introduced in an earlier position paper [11], is based on variability modeling [12] that allows abstracting from requirements with AND, OR, and REQUIRES relationships [13]. Variability is here used to structure decision options [14] for product evolution. This paper then introduces an industrial case [15] to understand how to use variability modeling in a real-world context of continuous agile product management [16]. Evaluated were feasibility of the approach and its effects on effort, decision-making, and trust were evaluated.The paper is structured as follows. Section 2 describes background and motivation. Section 3 introduces variability-based release planning. Section 4 describe...

“…A product manager constructs a feature tree by first grouping requirements into coarse features and then building feature vectors [20] that connect the root of the feature tree with leafs. Feature vectors are built iteratively by extracting requirements from given features into extending sub-features [21].…”

Section: Variability Modeling For Release Planningmentioning

confidence: 99%

Variability-Based Release Planning

Lecture Notes in Business Information Processing

Schumacher

2011

Abstract.A release plan defines the short-term evolution of a software product in terms of development project scope. In practice, release planning is often based on just fragmentarily defined requirements. Current release planning approaches, however, assume that a requirements catalogue is available in the form of a complete flat list of requirements. This very early commitment to detail reduces the flexibility of a product manager when planning product development. This paper explores how variability modeling, a software product line technique, can be used to plan, communicate, and track the evolution of a single software. Variability modeling can reduce the number of decisions required for release planning and reduce the information needed for communicating with stakeholders. An industrial case motivates and exemplifies the approach.