Software process: lessons and reflections

TLDR: The issue combines a set of regular articles with a special focus featuring the approach encapsulated in software product lines, a feasible paradigm for software development, allowing the industry to benefit from significant improvements in cost, quality and business drivers.

Abstract: Welcome to another issue of SPIP. In this issue, we can once again see the diversity of activity in the process area. The issue combines a set of regular articles with a special focus featuring the approach encapsulated in software product lines. A product line is a set of software-intensive systems that shares a common and managed set of features satisfying the specific needs of a particular market segment or mission that is developed from a common set of core assets (where a core asset may be a software component, a process model, a plan, a document or any other useful artefact) in a prescribed way. The concept of software product lines is emerging as a feasible paradigm for software development, allowing the industry to benefit from significant improvements in cost, quality and business drivers. The investment in product lines is spread across the entire range, or family, of products. The engineering of product lines can therefore provide the flexibility and speed required to operate in a rapid and responsive market environment while also offering the capability for mass customisation of high quality products. The widely reported adoption of product lines techniques by many leading companies is fuelling greater interest in the technology and its potential, and we are delighted to dedicate a significant part of this issue to further this discussion. The regular articles included in this issue also offer plenty of food for thought with a range of topics covering various aspects of capturing knowledge, conducting post-mortems, adopting maturity