Variability-based release planning

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. © 2011 Springer-Verlag.