A Method for Balancing Short- and Long-Term Investments: Quality vs. Features

• Published in: 2008 34th Euromicro Conference Software Engineering and Advanced Applications pp. 175 - 182
• Main Authors: Lindgren, M., Wall, A., Land, R., Norstrom, C.
• Format: Conference Proceeding
• Language: English
• Published: IEEE 01-09-2008
• Subjects: Application software; architecture; business; Companies; Computer industry; Costs; Force measurement; Investments; Production; release planning; Software engineering; Software quality; Time to market; trade-off analysis
• ISBN: 0769532764; 9780769532769
• ISSN: 1089-6503; 2376-9505
• DOI: 10.1109/SEAA.2008.22

There are a number of conflicting forces between short- and long-term considerations for software release planning in industry. For example, from a business perspective it is usually desired with a short time-to-market. However, from software quality perspective it is usually desired to have a longer time-to-market such that the proper architectural mechanisms can be put in place, which in the long-term reduce development cost and addresses quality aspects. In this paper we outline some of these conflicting forces, with a focus on long-lived systems, and examplify how they impact product quality and time-to-market. In this paper we propose a simple, but useful, extension of the release planning process that addresses these conflicting forces. The method is inspired from empirical data captured in a multiple case study involving 7 companies.