Abstract
Product roadmapping enhances the product development process by enabling
early information and long-term decision making about the products in
order to deliver the right products to the right markets at the right
time. However, relatively little scientific knowledge is available on
the application and usefulness of product roadmapping in software
product development context. This study develops a framework for
software product roadmapping, which is then used to study the critical
aspects of the product roadmapping process. The collection of empirical
evidence includes both quantitative and qualitative data which sheds
further insight into the complexities involved in product roadmapping.
Results revealed that organizations view the product roadmap mainly as a
tool for strategic decision making as it aims at showing the future
directions of the company's products. However, only a few companies
appear to have an explicit approach for handling the mechanisms for
creating and maintaining such a roadmap. Finally, it is suggested that
the strategic importance of product roadmapping is likely to increase in
the future and, as a conclusion, a new type of agility is required in
order to survive in the turbulent and competitive software business
environment.
Original language | English |
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Pages (from-to) | 958-975 |
Number of pages | 18 |
Journal | Journal of Systems and Software |
Volume | 84 |
Issue number | 6 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - 2011 |
MoE publication type | A1 Journal article-refereed |
Keywords
- Product roadmapping
- Roadmapping process
- Product development
- Software product management