Abstract
Evolution of a software product is inevitable as product context changes and the product gradually becomes less useful if it is not adapted. Planning is a basis to evolve a software product. The product manager, who carries responsibilities of planning, requires but does not always have access to high-quality information for making the best possible planning decisions. The current study aims to understand whether and when analytics are valuable for product planning and how they can be interpreted to a software product plan. The study was designed with an interview-based survey methodology approach through 17 in-depth semi-structured interviews with product managers. Based on results from qualitative analysis of the interviews, we defined an analytics-based model. The model shows that analytics have potentials to support the interpretation of product goals while is constrained by both product characteristics and product goals. The model implies how to use analytics for a good support of product planning evolution.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.
Buying options
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Learn about institutional subscriptionsReferences
Rajlich, V.C.T., Bennett, K.H.: A staged model for the software life cycle. Computer 33, 66–71 (2000)
Lehman, M.M.: Programs, life cycles, and laws of software evolution. Proc. IEEE 68, 1060–1076 (1980)
Gold, N., Mohan, A., Knight, C., Munro, M.: Understanding service-oriented software. IEEE Softw. 21, 71–77 (2004)
Choudhary, V.C.: Software as a service: implications for investment in software development. In: 40th Annual Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences, HICSS 2007, Waikoloa, Big Island, Hawaii (2007)
Denne, M., Cleland-Huang, J.: The incremental funding method: Data-driven software development. IEEE Softw. 21, 39–47 (2004)
Ottum, B.D., Moore, W.L.: The role of market information in new product success/failure. J. Prod. Innov. Manag. 14, 258–273 (1997)
Fricker, S.A.: Software Product Management. In: Maedche, A., Botzenhardt, A., Neer, L. (eds.) Software for People, pp. 53–81. Springer, Heidelberg (2012)
Kittlaus, H.-B., Clough, P.N.: Software Product Management and Pricing: Key Success Factors for Software Organizations. Springer-Verlag New York Inc., New York (2009)
Bekkers, W., van de Weerd, I., Spruit, M., Brinkkemper, S.: A framework for process improvement in software product management. In: Riel, A., O’Connor, R., Tichkiewitch, S., Messnarz, R. (eds.) EuroSPI 2010. CCIS, vol. 99, pp. 1–12. Springer, Heidelberg (2010)
Cooper, R.G., Edgett, S.J., Kleinschmidt, E.J.: New product portfolio management: practices and performance. J. Prod. Innov. Manag. 16, 333–351 (1999)
Phaal, R., Farrukh, C.J., Probert, D.R.: Technology roadmapping—a planning framework for evolution and revolution. Technol. Forecast. Soc. Change 71, 5–26 (2004)
Svahnberg, M., Gorschek, T., Feldt, R., Torkar, R., Saleem, S.B., Shafique, M.U.: A systematic review on strategic release planning models. Inf. Softw. Technol. 52, 237–248 (2010)
Ebert, C.: The impacts of software product management. J. Syst. Softw. 80, 850–861 (2007)
Phaal, R., Farrukh, C.J., Probert, D.R.: Strategic roadmapping: a workshop-based approach for identifying and exploring innovation issues and opportunities. Eng. Manag. J. 19, 3–12 (2007)
Krueger, R.A.: Focus Groups: A Practical Guide for Applied Research. Sage, Los Angeles (2009)
Fowler, F.J.: Survey Research Methods. Sage, Los Angeles (2009)
Lynna, G.S., Akgünb, A.E.: Project visioning: Its components and impact on new product success. J. Prod. Innov. Manag. 18, 374–387 (2001)
Robson, C.: Real World Research: A Resource for Social Scientists and Practitioner-Researchers. Blackwell, Oxford (2002)
Howard, J.A., Sheth, J.N.: The Theory of Buyer Behavior. Wiley, New York (1969)
Milne, A., Maiden, N.: Power and politics in requirements engineering: embracing the dark side? Requir. Eng. 17, 83–98 (2012)
Zhang, D., Dang, Y., Lou, J.-G., Han, S., Zhang, H., Xie, T.: Software analytics as a learning case in practice: Approaches and experiences. In: International Workshop on Machine Learning Technologies in Software Engineering, pp. 55–58. Lawrence, Kansas (2011)
Davenport, T.H., Harris, J.G.: Competing on Analytics: The New Science of Winning. Harvard Business Press, Boston (2007)
Buse, R., Zimmermann, T.: Analytics for software development. In: Foundations of Software Engineering (FSE)/SDP Workshop on Future of Software Engineering Research. ACM, Santa Fe (2010)
Buse, R., Zimmermann, T.: Information needs for software development analytics. In: International Conference on Software Engineering, ICSE 2012, pp. 987–996. IEEE Press, Zurich (2012)
Elo, S., Kyngäs, H.: The qualitative content analysis process. J. Adv. Nurs. 62, 107–115 (2008)
Brinkkemper, S.: Method engineering: engineering of information systems development methods and tools. Inf. Softw. Technol. 38, 275–280 (1996)
Fotrousi, F., Izadyan, K., Fricker, S.A.: Analytics for product planning: in-depth interview study with SaaS product managers. In: IEEE 6th International Conference on Cloud Computing, Santa Clara Marriott, CA, USA (2013)
Cooper, A.: What is analytics? Definition and essential characteristics. CETIS Anal. Ser. 1, 1–10 (2012)
Gorchels, L.: The Product Manager’s Handbook: The Complete Product Management Resource. NTC Business Books, Illinois (2000)
Fricker, S., Schumacher, S.: Release planning with feature trees: industrial case. In: Regnell, B., Damian, D. (eds.) REFSQ 2011. LNCS, vol. 7195, pp. 288–305. Springer, Heidelberg (2012)
Cusumano, M.A.: The changing software business: Moving from products to services. Computer 41, 20–27 (2008)
Menasce, D.A.: QoS issues in web services. IEEE Internet Comput. 6, 72–75 (2002)
Srivastava, J., Cooley, R., Deshpande, M., Tan, P.-N.: Web usage mining: Discovery and applications of usage patterns from web data. ACM SIGKDD Explor. Newslett. 1, 12–23 (2000)
Clifton, B.: Advanced Web Metrics with Google Analytics. Wiley. com, New York (2012)
Kohavi, R., Rothleder, N.J., Simoudis, E.: Emerging trends in business analytics. Commun. ACM 45, 45–48 (2002)
Holsapple, C., Lee-Post, A., Pakath, R.: A unified foundation for business analytics. Decis. Support Syst. 64, 130–141 (2014)
Shung, K.P., Junyu, M.C.: Application of analytics in business strategy. Bus. Intell. J. 5, 190–193 (2012)
Guest, G., Bunce, A., Johnson, L.: How many interviews are enough? An experiment with data saturation and variability. Field Methods 18, 59–82 (2006)
Clements, P., Bass, L.: Using business goals to inform a software architecture. In: 18th IEEE International on Requirements Engineering Conference (RE 2010), Sydney, NSW, Australia (2010)
Ebert, C., Brinkkemper, S.: Software product management–An industry evaluation. J. Syst. Softw. 95, 10–18 (2014)
Herrera, M., Moraga, M.Å., Caballero, I., Calero, C.: Quality in use model for web portals (QiUWeP). In: Facca, F.M., Daniel, F. (eds.) ICWE 2010. LNCS, vol. 6385, pp. 91–101. Springer, Heidelberg (2010)
Olsson, H.H., Bosch, J.: Climbing the “Stairway to Heaven”: evolving from agile development to continuous deployment of software. In: Bosch, J. (ed.) Continuous Software Engineering, pp. 15–27. Springer, New York (2014)
Acknowledgments
Parts of this work have been done with the support of the SUPERSEDE project funded by the European Union’s ICT 2014 under grant agreement no 644018.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Appendix: Tables of Qualitative Analysis
Appendix: Tables of Qualitative Analysis
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2016 Springer International Publishing Switzerland
About this paper
Cite this paper
Fotrousi, F., Fricker, S.A. (2016). Software Analytics for Planning Product Evolution. In: Maglyas, A., Lamprecht, AL. (eds) Software Business. ICSOB 2016. Lecture Notes in Business Information Processing, vol 240. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-40515-5_2
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-40515-5_2
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-40514-8
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-40515-5
eBook Packages: Business and ManagementBusiness and Management (R0)