Software product roadmapping in a volatile business environment

Tanja Suomalainen, Outi Salo, Pekka Abrahamsson, Jouni Similä

    Research output: Contribution to journalArticleScientificpeer-review

    22 Citations (Scopus)

    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 languageEnglish
    Pages (from-to)958-975
    Number of pages18
    JournalJournal of Systems and Software
    Volume84
    Issue number6
    DOIs
    Publication statusPublished - 2011
    MoE publication typeA1 Journal article-refereed

    Keywords

    • Product roadmapping
    • Roadmapping process
    • Product development
    • Software product management

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