Managing requirements inter-dependency for software product line derivation

Software Product Line Engineering (SPLE) can reduce software development costs, reduce time to market and improve product quality. A software product line is a set of software products sharing a set of common features but containing variation points. Successful SPLE requires making selection decisions at variation points effectively and efficiently. A significant challenge is how to identify, represent and manage the inter-dependency of selection decisions for requirements. We developed the concept of a meta-model for requirement decision models to bring formalism and consistency to the structure and to model inter-dependencies between requirement selection decisions. Here we present a meta-model for requirement selection decisions that includes inter-dependencies and we use a mobile phone worked example to illustrate our approach. To support our method, we developed two separate tools, V-Define (for domain decision model construction) and V-Resolve (for new product derivation). Finally the results of a metal processing product line case study using the tools are described.