Variability Plug-Ins for Requirements Tools: A Case-Based Theory Building Approach
Anil Kumar Thurimella, Bernd Bruegge, Dirk Janzen · IEEE Systems Journal · 2015
Product line engineering is a promising discipline for developing a family of systems based on a reusable asset base by systematically managing variability. Requirements tools that deal with variability are a key in the development of product lines. Because of the weak tool support to reuse system requirements and heterogeneity in the representations and processes, we identify a need for guidance and empirical evidence in order to extend a requirements tool with variability. We believe that existing requirement tools can be reused for product line requirements engineering (RE) by adding plug-ins. In this paper, we report a retrospective multiple case study with two diverse cases on developing and deploying variability plug-ins. Our study is based on the theory building process from social sciences and organizational theory. We show how our results can be used by practitioners to extend an RE tool with minimal implementation effort to manage variability.