Migrating towards evolving software product lines: challenges of an SME in a core customer-driven industrial systems engineering context

In this paper we identify key challenges a medium-sized software organization is facing in migrating towards Software Product Line Engineering (SPLE). The software engineering context of the company is characterized by a two-fold access to the market - core customer driven product enhancement and product development for a broader, anonymous market - and the embedding of software engineering in multi-disciplinary systems and solutions engineering. Based on a characterization of the business, the software product subject to migration towards SPLE, and the goals and background of the SPLE initiative, seven key challenges with respect to the migration are identified. These challenges relate to process diversity in the face of multiple reuse approaches; the management of requirements and variability; the integration of requirements traceability and variability management; legacy software and discipline vs. software-specific modularization; integration with systems engineering; costing and pricing models; and project vs. product documentation.