Skip to main content

Simulation-Based Stability Analysis for Software Release Plans

  • Conference paper
Software Process Change (SPW 2006)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNPSE,volume 3966))

Included in the following conference series:

Abstract

Release planning for incremental software development assigns features to releases such that most important technical, resource, risk and budget constraints are met. The research presented in this paper is based on a three staged procedure. In addition to an existing method for (i) strategic release planning that maps requirements to subsequent releases and (ii) a more fine-grained planning that defines resource allocations for each individual release, we propose a third step, i.e., (iii) stability analysis, which analyzes proposed release plans with regards to their sensitivity to unforeseen changes. Unforeseen changes can relate to alterations in expected personnel availability and productivity, feature-specific task size (measured in terms of effort), and degree of task dependency (measured in terms of work load that can only be processed if corresponding work in predecessor tasks has been completed). The focus of this paper is on stability analysis of proposed release plans. We present the simulation model REPSIM (Release Plan Simulator) and illustrate its usefulness for stability analysis with the help of a case example.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 39.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD 54.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Preview

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

References

  1. Bagnall, A.J., Rayward-Smith, V.J., Whittley, I.M.: The Next Release Problem. Information and Software Technology 43(14), 883–890 (2001)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  2. Denne, M., Cleland-Huang, J.: The Incremental Funding Method: Data Driven Software Development. IEEE Software 21(3), 39–47 (2004)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  3. Greer, D.: Decision Support for Planning Software Evolution with Risk Management. In: Proceedings of 16th International Conference on Software Engineering and Knowledge Engineering (SEKE 2004), Banff, Canada, pp. 503–508 (2004)

    Google Scholar 

  4. Höst, M., Regnell, B., Dag, J., Nedstam, J., Nyberg, C.: Exploring Bootlenecks in Market-Driven Requirements Management Processes with Discrete Event Simulation. Journal of Systems and Software 59(3), 323–332 (2001)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  5. Jung, H.-W.: Optimizing Value and Cost in Requirements Analysis. IEEE Software, 74–78 (1998)

    Google Scholar 

  6. Karlsson, J., Ryan, K.: A Cost-Value Approach for Prioritizing Requirements. IEEE Software 14(5), 67–74 (1997)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  7. Ngo-The, A., Ruhe, G.: Optimized Resource Allocation for Incremental Software Development. Technical Report of the Laboratory for Software Engineering Decision Support, Report No. 049/2006 (2006)

    Google Scholar 

  8. Penny, D.A.: An Estimation-Based Management Framework for Enhancive Maintenance in Commercial Software Products. In: Proceedings of International Conference on Software Maintenance (ICSM 2002), Montreal, Canada, pp. 122–130 (2002)

    Google Scholar 

  9. Ruhe, G.: Software Release Planning. In: Handbook of Software Engineering and Knowledge Engineering, vol. 3, pp. 365–394. World Scientific Publishing, Singapore (2005)

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  10. Ruhe, G., Ngo-The, A.: Hybrid Intelligence in Software Release Planning. International Journal of Hybrid Intelligent Systems 1(2), 99–110 (2004)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  11. Saliu, O., Ruhe, G.: Supporting Software Release Planning Decisions for Evolving Systems. In: Proceedings of 29th IEEE/NASA Software Engineering Workshop, Greenbelt, MD, USA, April 6-7 (2005)

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2006 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

About this paper

Cite this paper

Pfahl, D., Al-Emran, A., Ruhe, G. (2006). Simulation-Based Stability Analysis for Software Release Plans. In: Wang, Q., Pfahl, D., Raffo, D.M., Wernick, P. (eds) Software Process Change. SPW 2006. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 3966. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/11754305_29

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/11754305_29

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-540-34199-4

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-540-34201-4

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

Publish with us

Policies and ethics