Release Planning in Market-Driven Software Product Development: Provoking an Understanding

In market-driven software development, release planning is one of the most critical tasks. Selecting a subset of requirements for realisation in a certain release is as complex as it is important for the success of a software product. Despite this, the literature provides little information on how release planning is done in practice. We designed, implemented and evaluated a support tool for release planning as a means for provoking a rich understanding of the task of release planning. The tool utilises a selection algorithm which, based on value, resource estimate and interdependencies, presents a number of valid and good release suggestions. The initial attempt at supporting release planning proved to be based on an overly simplistic and structuralistic view. The results provide ample evidence that the task could be characterised as a wicked problem, which in turn has several implications for the support needed. Although the provotype could indeed support the planner, in its current version it has several serious shortcomings related to the degree of interactivity, underlying models, presentation of information and general appearance. A rich description of the task of release planning is provided. Based on these findings, a list of design implications is proposed, which is intended to guide the future design of a support tool for release planning.