1st International Workshop on Quantitative Methods in Software Product Line Engineering Silvia Abrahão1, Andy J. Nolan2, Paul C. Clements3, John D. McGregor4 1
Dept of Computer Science Universitat Politècnica de Valencia Camino de Vera s/n, 46022 Valencia, Spain
[email protected]
2 Rolls-Royce SIN C-3, Rolls-Royce plc, PO Box 31 Derby DE24 8BJ, England
[email protected]
Abstract—Many of the benefits expected from Software Product Lines (SPLs) are based on the assumption that the additional investment in setting up a product line pays off later when products are created. However, to fully exploit this assumption, organizations need to optimize the development of core assets and products that bring the maximum business value. The objective of this workshop is to bring together researchers and practitioners to report and discuss the challenges and opportunities for integrating quantitative methods in product line engineering with the objective of achieving both technical and business goals. In particular, we are seeking contributions that, on the one hand, deal with product line estimation and metrics for the effective management of product line projects; and on the other hand, provide some insight into new trends in value-based product line engineering. Keywords-Quantitative Methods; Software Product Lines; Product Line Estimation and Metrics, Value-based Product Line Engineering.
I.
WORKSHOP THEME AND OBJECTIVES
Software product line practices have been extensively applied in industry for improving software productivity, quality and cycle time [3] [4]. Many of the benefits expected from Software Product Lines (SPLs) are based on the assumption that the additional investment in setting up a product line pays off later when products are created. However, to fully exploit this assumption, organizations need to optimize the development of core assets and products that bring the maximum business value. There are many decision points in software product line engineering that require a sound basis for resolving. Despite the recognition of its crucial role, product line development decisions are mainly made based on cost reduction. While in the end the financial return is important from the organization perspective, its survival in the market is only possible with high-quality products that meet business needs. The need to consider business issues within the whole software development life cycle lies behind a set of new topics that are gaining momentum in the Software Engineering community. Among them, value-based approaches [1] are of particular interest since business issues
3
Software Engineering Institute Carnegie Mellon University 4500 5th Avenue, Pittsburgh PA 15213-2616, USA (412) 268-5800
[email protected]
4
Dept of Computer Science 312 McAdams Hall Clemson University Clemson, USA (864) 656-5859
[email protected]
are equally engineered into software processes, management and technology decisions through the software life cycle. However, software product lines have unique practices and project definitions. These unconventional features offer new challenges and directions for traditional project management [2]. Software product line practitioners need new approaches, models, and tools for addressing various challenges related to the quantitative management of software product lines to be able to maximize the business value of adopting product lines. The objective of this workshop is to bring together researchers and practitioners to report and discuss the challenges and opportunities for integrating quantitative methods in product line engineering with the objective of achieving both technical and business goals. In particular, we are seeking contributions that, on the one hand, deal with product line estimation and metrics for the effective management of product line projects; and, on the other hand, provide some insight into new trends in value-based product line engineering. Within this focus, topics of discussion include how value can be defined and measured along the product line lifecycle, understanding the factors that influence value, understanding the trades that can be made to optimize the achievement of value, quantifying and mitigating risks to the achievement of business goals, managing and controlling projects and processes to achieve value and so on. In summary, this workshop aims at providing a reference forum in which (1) practitioners get to know the current findings in quantitative methods for product line engineering, and how they can transfer those methods to their particular domain, and (2) researchers get to know real experiences about which are the problems organizations are facing when tackling value-based product line projects. An issue of particular importance is when and how value-based project planning and control methods should be integrated in product line development and management. In this sense, we are looking for contributions that not only discuss technical and theoretical aspects, but also methodological and practical issues related to value-based product line engineering. The workshop is also looking for industry evidence that shows empirical results of the measurement of both value and the quality factors that can influence the attainment of business
value. For example, quality factors may include testability, reliability, maintainability, reusability, modifiability, variability and so on and their affect on business benefit and business value. II.
WORKSHOP TOPICS
The proposed workshop focuses on the integration of quantitative methods in product line engineering, product line management and decision-making. The topics of interest include, but are not limited to: • Estimation in Software Product Lines - Cost models for software product lines - Risk and economic value assessment in software product lines - Models for cost-benefit analysis - Models for aligning technical needs and business benefits - Models for product line payoff prediction • Metrics for Software Product Lines - Quality factors, criteria, metrics, patterns, and recommendations - Integration of quality assessment activities in product line development processes - Theoretical/empirical validation of quality metrics for software product lines - Comparative analysis of quality metrics - Tools for automatic quality assessment • Value-based Product Line Engineering - Value-based monitoring and control - Value-based risk assessment and prioritization - Value-based quality management • Goal-driven Product Line Measurement • Measurement and decision making in product line engineering • Empirical studies in product line engineering • Industrial case studies III.
the elicitation of challenges in the major workshop topics of interest. Each presentation will be followed by a short discussion. In the afternoon, the workshop participants will be organized around working groups to discuss specific themes. The workshop will close with the reports from the working groups and a plenary session. V.
Ideally, 15 to 20 participants will take part in the workshop. The workshop registration will be open to all interested parties. Two types of submissions are solicited: full papers with up to 10 pages describing substantial, completed work, and position papers with 5 pages describing either results that can be concisely reported or work in progress. The papers are expected to comprise research papers or experience reports and represent original work not previously published. The workshop papers should follow the IEEE proceedings style (letter, two-column format). Authors are invited to submit their papers electronically in PDF format via the electronic Workshop Review System at http://www.easychair.org/conferences/?conf=qmspl2011). The submission should clearly emphasize the discussion aspects relevant to the workshop. All papers will be peer-reviewed by at least three reviewers from an International Program Committee. Submissions will be evaluated according to both the relevance and originality of the work and their ability to generate discussion between the workshop participants. The workshop proceedings will be published on-line, as part of the CEUR Workshop proceedings series. CEURWS.org is a recognized ISSN publication series, ISSN 16130073, in which the papers are normally indexed by Google Scholar and Citeseer. VI. • • •
RELEVANCE OF THE WORKSHOP TO SPLC 2011
In the last years several methods, techniques, and tools have been proposed to support the technical aspects of software product line engineering. However, the body of knowledge on the quantitative management [5] and business aspects of software product lines is small. A specific workshop on quantitative methods in product line engineering with a particular focus on estimation, metrics and value-based product line engineering at the International Software Product Line Conference (SPLC) will offer a venue for researchers and industry practitioners to present their solutions, report their experiences, and discuss the state-of-the-practice of the theme and identify challenges and opportunities that should be addressed in the near future. IV.
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WORKSHOP FORMAT
The workshop will start with a keynote by a distinguished speaker, followed by presentations of accepted papers, organized by sessions according to the workshop themes. The main purpose of the sessions is contributing to
PARTICIPATION AND SUBMISSION PROCEDURE
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PRELIMINARY PROGRAM COMMITTEE1
Muhammad Ali Babar, IT University of Copenhagen, Denmark David Benavides, University of Seville, Spain Stefan Biffl, Vienna University of Technology, Austria Jan Bosch, Intuit, USA Sholom Cohen, Software Engineering Institute, USA Christof Ebert, Vector, Germany Hakan Erdogmus, Kalemun Research Inc., Canada Davide Falessi, Simula Research Laboratory & University of Rome Tor Vergata, Italy Marcela Genero, University of Castilla-la-Mancha, Spain Barbara Kitchenham, Keele University, UK Charles Krüger, BigLever Software, USA Audris Mockus, Avaya Labs Research, USA Dirk Muthing, Lufthansa Systems, Germany Linda Northrop, Software Engineering Institute, USA Goiuria Sagardui, Mondragon Unibertsitatea, Spain
Program committee members are currently being invited.
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VIII. ORGANIZERS
Klaus Schmid, University of Hildesheim, Germany Forrest Shull, Fraunhofer Center, Maryland, USA
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PLAN for ATTRACTING SUBMISSIONS AND PROMOTING
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ATTENDANCE
The workshop chairs will distribute the call for papers mainly via widely well-known mailing lists such as SEWorld, ISWorld and DBWorld as well as specific lists for research and professional activities (e.g., LindkedIn, Plaxo). These lists target a large audience in the international research and industrial communities. Additionally, the chairs plan to exploit the ongoing research projects and contacts of their organizations with leading scientists to disseminate the workshop call for papers among interested parties. All information about the workshop will be made available on the Internet via a website. Members of the program committee are selected to cover a majority of the groups interested in the workshop theme. Submissions from industry will be particularly encouraged. With this purpose, the program committee and the organizing committee include representatives from industry. In addition, we plan to contact key software engineering journals about their willingness to produce a special issue based on the best full papers presented at the workshop.
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Silvia Abrahão, Universitat Politècnica de València, Spain. Andy J. Nolan, Rolls-Royce, England. Paul C. Clements, Software Engineering Institute, Carnegie Mellon University, USA. John D. McGregor, Clemson University, USA. REFERENCES
[1] [2]
[3] [4]
[5]
S. Biffl, A. Aurum, B. Boehm, H. Erdogmus, P. Grünbacher, ValueBased Software Engineering, Springer, 2005. P. C. Clements, L. G. Jones, L. M. Northrop, J. D. McGregor, “Project Management in a Software Product Line Organization”, IEEE Software 22 (5): 54-62 (2005). P. Clements and L. Northrop, Software Product Lines: Practices and Patterns. SEI Series in Software Engineering, Addison-Wesley, 2001. F. J. van der Linden, , K. Schmid, E. Rommes, Software Product Lines in Action, The Best Industrial Practice in Product Line Engineering, Springer, 2007. S. Montagud, S. Abrahão, “Gathering current knowledge about quality evaluation in software product lines”, 13th International Conference on Software Product Lines (SPLC 2009), San Francisco, California, USA, August 24-28, 2009, ACM 2009, pp. 91-100.
