Experiences of a Product Line Migration Project

Product lines are a specialized type of software architecture with a very good reuse potential and an improved quality for software systems based on the customized mass production concept. Many software companies own several projects and have extensive experiences with single product developments. Here, any further automation of the software development process and enhancements in the quality of the resulting product are very tempting promises to move from single product development to product lines. The migration of existing software products towards a product line is subject of this paper. Based on two student projects resulting in two cycle computers, the migration to a cycle computer product line is presented, analyzed as well as compared with the industrial experiences available so far. The results of this analysis are lessons learned on the technical side and challenges of the organizational migration facets. The paper summarizes the migration process to give the reader a supporting view on his own migration projects and enable the early detection of upcoming challenges and avoid possible pitfalls.