Category: 2. Building Products
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Data structures vs. functions in the age of microservices
The old wisdom of “data structures over functions” has stood the test of time for probably 50 years now. It states that long-term, a system is better built on sound data structures than functions. While functions may hide clumsy data structures for a while, when faced with evolution and new user needs, poor data structures…
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What’s wrong in software product line engineering? The separation of the platform as a cost center from the product units as profit centers
In three previous posts I had reported about our research into problems with product line engineering. Three important specific problems (of several more) were: In all three cases (and then some), the underlying problem was the separation of the platform organizational unit as a cost center from the product organizational units as profit centers. Product…
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What’s wrong in software product line engineering? Political power play between product units
In previous blog posts we identified as causes for problems in software product line engineering. Of several more, I want to pick a third and final one, before we turn to the root cause of it all in the next blog post. This third cause is the political power play between product units as they…
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What’s wrong in software product line engineering? Insufficient collaboration between product and platform unit
As previously posted, we analyzed current problems in product line engineering. One case study was a healthcare software product line, one was a business software product line, and one was a telco carrier software product line. All developers in their respective product line were homogeneous in time and culture (one main location, one social culture),…
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What’s wrong in software product line engineering? Lack of resources in the platform organizational unit
A few years ago we analysed several highly successful software product lines. You can find the details in our corresponding publication. We had been brought in, because the business owners of each product line felt that something was amiss and that productivity could still be improved. In this short blog post series I’ll discuss the…
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There is no (Scrum) product owner
One of the most difficult aspects of Scrum is the role of the product owner. Most software vendors have a product management function, typically split into strategic and technical product management. Technical product management is usually equated with Scrum’s product owner role, that is, the guy or gal who writes business-value-oriented user stories and epics,…