Incremental and iterative reengineering towards software product line: An industrial case study

Gang Zhang*, Liwei Shen, Xin Peng, Zhenchang Xing, Wenyun Zhao

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contributionpeer-review

19 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

It is common in practice that a Software Product Line (SPL) is constructed by reengineering a set of existing variant products. To alleviate the problems of high risks of failures and the limitations of resources and cost, incremental reengineering towards a SPL is a natural choice in many cases. However, several problems remain unaddressed properly, such as how to define increments, how to satisfy regular product delivery in parallel with reengineering, and how to achieve early successes. In this paper, we report an industrial case study on a successful SPL-targeted reengineering project conducted in Alcatel-Lucent. In this project, the project team applied the principles of agile development in the process of SPL reengineering. The key practices of the project include value-based increment definition, domain-driven responsibility alignment, iterative component refactoring and integration. We analyze the reengineering process of a major component qualitatively and quantitatively, with the focus on initial investment required, trend of investment, returns on investment and quality improvement. Our case study shows that incremental and iterative approach with stakeholder-value considerations can help to achieve steady and successful SPL reengineering in a cost-effective manner. We also find that SPL adoption can be regarded as an emergent result of the reconstruction and improvement of existing product assets.

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationProceedings of the 27th IEEE International Conference on Software Maintenance, ICSM 2011
Pages418-427
Number of pages10
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2011
Externally publishedYes
Event27th IEEE International Conference on Software Maintenance, ICSM 2011 - Williamsburg, VA, United States
Duration: 25 Sept 201130 Sept 2011

Publication series

NameIEEE International Conference on Software Maintenance, ICSM

Conference

Conference27th IEEE International Conference on Software Maintenance, ICSM 2011
Country/TerritoryUnited States
CityWilliamsburg, VA
Period25/09/1130/09/11

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