Practices of Agile Software Product- Line Engineering

142 Pages·2009·3.83 MB·English

Practices of Agile Software Product-
Line Engineering
A qualitative assessment of empirical studies
Snorre Gylterud
Master of Science in Computer Science
Submission date: August 2009
Supervisor: Torgeir Dingsøyr, IDI
Co-supervisor: Kyo C. Kang, POSTECH
Norwegian University of Science and Technology
Department of Computer and Information Science

Problem Description
Software engineering is evolving as we speak. The need to develop software efficiently with high
quality is becoming more important for companies and their core competencies in various
domains. Software Product-Line Engineering is a software engineering approach where
commonalities in the product portfolio are exploited through reuse. Usually, this has a large initial
investment. Agile Software Development is a collection of methods and practices that tries to
implement products through team-orientation, embracing change and reduced design effort.
Lately researchers have studied the theoretical combination between these two approaches to
Software Engineering. This assignment is to get an understanding of how companies combine the
best of these two approaches to control and streamline the process of making software.
Assignment given: 16. February 2009
Supervisor: Torgeir Dingsøyr, IDI

Abstract
This thesis elaborated on the how Software Product-Line Engineering is
combined with Agile Software Development to improve Software Engineering,
through investigating published case studies and performing interviews in
several companies. This combination are often described as Agile Software
Product-Line Engineering and our study aimed to describe what agility is for
software product lines and find out more on how this approach could be
realized. Agile Software Product-Line Engineering could reap benefits from the
best of the two software engineering approaches combining long term strategic
efforts with short term agility.
By following a specified research method that combines qualitative research
methods we were able to ensure validity in our analyses and generalize the
findings of this study. We used both semi-structured interviews and textual
analysis techniques.
The companies under study seem to combine Software Product-Line
Engineering and Agile Software Development with success, reducing initial
investment and exploiting reuse, and we found several practices that are
interesting for further study. Based on these practices we present our view of a
top-down approach to Agile Software Product-Line Engineering starting with
several characteristics and a proposal for a definition of the field. Further, a
framework for implementing the approach based on our research is presented,
before we describe our thoughts on how the practice areas of Software Product-
Line Engineering can be combined with Agile Software Development practices.
We think that this thesis could be used as a guideline for further study and
implementation of Agile Software Product-Lines. We believe that the data we
cover is comprehensive based on the small existing research field and covers the
general ideas of both the fields included in the combination.
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Preface
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Technology (NTNU). TThhee tthheessiiss wwaass mostly written at PPoohhaanngg UUnniivveerrssiittyy ooff
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2009.08.24 TTrroonnddhheeiimm, Norway Snorre Gylterud

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Contents

1. Introduction .............................................................................................. 1
1.1 Problem Areas.................................................................................... 2
1.2 Research Questions ............................................................................ 3
1.3 Objectives .......................................................................................... 4
1.4 Target Readers ................................................................................... 5
1.5 Clarifications ...................................................................................... 5
1.6 Organization of Thesis ....................................................................... 5
2. State of the Art: Product Line and Agile Software Engineering ................ 7
2.1 Software Product-Line Engineering .................................................... 8
2.2 Agile Software Development ........................................................... 20
2.3 Agile Software Product-Line Engineering ........................................ 27
3. Research Method .................................................................................... 29
3.1 Data Gathering ................................................................................. 30
3.2 Data Analysis ................................................................................... 38
4. Practices in Industry: Product Line and Agile Software Engineering ...... 41
4.1 Presentation of Case Studies ............................................................. 44
4.2 Practices Found in Software Product-Line Engineering .................... 57
4.3 Practices Found in Agile Software Development .............................. 64
5. Discussion .............................................................................................. 69
5.1 Characteristics of Agility in Software Product-Line Engineering ...... 72
5.2 Framework for Agile Software Product-Line Engineering ............... 75
5.3 Combining Software Product-Line Engineering Practice Areas and
Agile Software Development Practices ....................................................... 83
5.4 Threats to Validity ........................................................................... 94
6. Conclusion ............................................................................................. 99
Bibliography ................................................................................................ 103

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