Agile release planning through optimization

Abstract

Agile software development represents a major approach to software engineering. Agile processes offer numerous benefits to organizations including quicker return on investment, higher product quality, and better customer satisfaction. However, there is no sound methodological support of agile release planning - contrary to the traditional, plan-based approaches. To address this situation, we present an agile release planning model and a heuristic optimization algorithm as a solution. Four real life data sets of its application and evaluation are drawn from the lending sector. The experiment demonstrates that this approach can provide more informed and established decisions and support easy optimized release plan productions. Finally, the paper analyzes benefits and issues from the use of this approach in system development projects.