Product Line Analysis |
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Suppose your organization has decided to pursue a software product line approach. There seems to be a sound initial business case for doing so, the set of likely products in the product line has been identified, there is a market for such a product line, and your organization believes it has the domain expertise and technical savvy to make it all work. Now what? How do you combine these disparate sources of information into a coherent set of preliminary requirements that will shape the product line architecture and production strategy?
Product line analysis (PLA) is an initial and relatively brief pass at requirements engineering for a product line of software-intensive systems. Its goal is to identify opportunities for large-grained reuse across the product line. PLA mitigates the risk of product line adoption by combining information from multiple product line stakeholders in a form that permits reasoning about the allocation of functional features and quality attributes to assets and products. The model of a product line that emerges from PLA also provides early identification of the architecturally-significant requirements.
What is now called product line analysis grew out of our early domain analysis and requirements modeling work with industrial customers building software product lines. Because product lines span multiple domains and have multiple stakeholders, domain analysis techniques alone did not provide the solution we sought. As a consequence, our approach uses techniques from domain analysis, but also borrows from work in object technology, use-case modeling, and architecture definition and evaluation.
The major benefit of PLA is its early identification of the "big ticket" issues affecting a product line and its development. PLA also provides input to the decisions and tradeoffs concerning allocation of resources to core asset and product development.
Read More
To learn more about product line analysis you may wish to view
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Chastek, Gary & Donohoe, Patrick. Product Line Analysis for Practitioners (CMU/SEI-2003-TR-008). Pittsburgh, PA: Software Engineering Institute, Carnegie Mellon University, 2003.
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Chastek, Gary; Donohoe, Patrick; Kang, Kyo Chul; & Thiel, Steffen. Product Line Analysis: A Practical Introduction (CMU/SEI-2001-TR-001, ADA396137). Pittsburgh, PA: Software Engineering Institute, Carnegie Mellon University, 2001.
Work With Us
SEI products and services associated with product line analysis include
Product Line Analysis Contacts
For technical details: Gary Chastek or Patrick Donohoe
To arrange product line analysis products and services: Linda Northrop