Evolutionary Product Line Requirements Engineering

Abstract

The systematic identification and description of commonalities, variabilities, and volatilities is a critical step for achieving successful reuse in the development of a product line. Thus, the adequate selection or extension of requirements engineering methods for product lines can be regarded as a key factor for success when introducing the product line approach in a company. This tutorial will cover the following topics:

• The importance of product line scoping, analysis, and modeling for successful product line engineering
• Key principles of scoping (e.g., common and variable features, domains, products) and PuLSE-Eco
• Key principles of product line analysis and modeling (e.g., commonality and variability, decision modeling, domain analysis and application analysis, and traceability to all interrelated phases)
• An overview of product line analysis and modeling approaches
• Extension of existing requirements engineering approaches with the PuLSE-CDA approach
• Key concepts for predicting future adaptation needs and thus, likely changes in product lines
• Integrated and early evolution planning in Product Line Engineering

With these topics, we completely cover the early phases of Product Line Engineering, enabling practitioners to start using product lines on a solid basis. The intended audience includes practitioners who want to learn how to carry out these early phases successfully, as well as researchers who want to know more about an integrated approach for product line scoping, analysis, and planning for future evolution.

Presenter: Isabel John

is a researcher and project leader at Fraunhofer IESE. She is responsible for product line introduction projects in industrial contexts and performs product line technology transfer to software developing companies. For almost 10 years, she has been working in research and industrial projects in the context of software product lines, scoping, and product line requirements engineering. Her work focuses on product line analysis, scoping, and information retrieval for product lines. She has given several presentations and tutorials on product line engineering at software engineering conferences and in industrial contexts. She received her M.Sc. degree in Computer Science from the University of Kaiserslautern.

Presenter: Karina Villela     

is a lecturer and researcher at the University of Salvador in Brazil, where she also worked closely to several software companies. She defined and adapted software processes related to many process areas to various companies’ specific needs and also provided consultancy for their implementation. She is currently at Fraunhofer IESE as an Alexander von Humboldt fellow. There, she has been working on product line requirements engineering with the goal of improving the ability of product lines to evolve over time. In this context, she has defined a method for proactively managing the evolving scope of a product line. She received her M.Sc. and PhD degrees in Computer Science from the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.