Process approach in realizing common software platform
Prasanth Rv, Elizabeth Parakal · 2013
Software platform development centers grab a fair share of the pie in the Indian software space. These captive centers face multiple challenges when it comes to catering to the needs of the stakeholders having diversified roadmaps, demands and expectations. One of the main challenges faced by the platform group is the stakeholder's expectation to have a seamless integration with platform deliverables. This comes with the related expectations like flexibility of the platform in accepting the changing stakeholder requirements, giving frequent in-progress at the same time stable deliveries, catering to multiple stakeholders with varied demands, ease of stakeholder product development, etc. Here the platform cannot be adamant with respect to requirement scope stability from its stakeholders. It goes without saying that the platform group's existence depends directly on the spectra of demand created from the business units. In an attempt to address the above challenges sufficiently early in the development life cycle of the business unit, the platform group in Philips adopted the advance development life cycle model. This delivery model helps in getting the platform evaluated by stakeholders at various points in the software development life cycle of the platform in conjunction with the life cycle of BU's product. This not only helped in identifying the interdependencies and resolving them earlier in the lifecycle, it also addressed the growing demands from the stakeholders with respect to the scope changes. In this paper, we bring out our journey in formulating and adopting this way of working, gauging stakeholder perceptions through measurements, challenges faced and the road ahead.