An information systems design product theory for the class of integrated requirements and release management systems

Abstract

SUMMARYHigh-tech companies conducting product development need to collect and analyze requirements effectively, plan and implement releases, and allocate requirements to appropriate releases. Requirements and release management are complicated because development activities typically are scattered across multiple sites, involve multiple partners in different countries, leverage various development methods and tools, and are realized through various organizational arrangements such as release projects in organizations structured around products and permanent release teams in organizations responsible for the long-term development and maintenance of strategic software and hardware assets. Flexible, scalable, and secure groupwarebased support for the activities provides substantial payoffs. Yet, the extant literature provides little theoretical guidance for designing and using requirements and release management systems (RRMS) in multi-site, multi-partner environments. This article develops the meta-requirements and a meta-design of an Information Systems Design Product Theory for the class of RRMS based on a case study in a global company and a literature review. The theory is scalable to meet the needs of global companies but simple enough so that small and medium-sized companies can also leverage it to implement requirements and release management solutions.

A dynamic life-cycle model for the provisioning of software testing services

“…The area is enabled by requirements, test, and defect management systems (c.f. Käkölä, Koivulahti-Ojala, & Liimatainen, 2011). QC Downloaded by [Gebze Yuksek Teknoloji Enstitïsu ] at 11:37 22 December 2014 implements most common requirements of the class of requirements, test, and defect management systems but it does not qualify as an instance of the class because other software products and manual routines are necessary to enable the life-cycle.…”

Framework for Evaluating the Version Management Capabilities of a Class of UML Modeling Tools from the Viewpoint of Multi-Site, Multi-Partner Product Line Organizations

“…However, this feature is optional because users can work without comprehensive tracebility at least as long as their routines and/or tools do not break down. When coordination breakdowns disrupt the routines, it is typically time consuming and expensive to find out and fix the reasons for the breakdowns, if the traceability information is missing [20,21].…”

Standards Initiatives for Software Product Line Engineering and Management within the International Organization for Standardization

“…Interoperable and even integrated information systems are critical to support knowledge management throughout the domain and application engineering life-cycles [16] and during variability modeling and resolution [1]. Yet, commercially available and industrially validated software tools to implement such systems for product line engineering are scarcely available partly because the markets do not know what to expect from such tools and thus remain small and fragmented.…”

“…The costs and benefits of traceability links should be analyzed to determine appropriate level of traceability. Having too much or too little traceability is costly [16].…”