Abstract
Whether a software product company takes up a project depends on the strategic decisions that are made with regard to an organization’s products. A software project needs to fit strategic goals and enable an organization to realize a vision through its software products. Making decisions on a strategic level, however, requires information of several related topics including technological trends and the product’s life cycle and surpasses the scope of an individual software project. Instead, these decisions are made on the level of the product portfolio. Product Portfolio Management (PPM) holds that an organization has to manage investment decisions over time following profit and risk criteria. Given the multitude of relevant topics and the interrelatedness between these topics, it has proven difficult to implement PPM processes in software businesses. To this end, we created the Portfolio Implementation Framework (PIF) consisting of (a) a competence model, giving an overview of the critical topics; (b) process-deliverable diagrams, which provide an implementation path for product portfolio management processes; and (c) a maturity matrix that comprises 32 capabilities, which should be realized during implementation. The maturity matrix also serves as an instrument for industry to assess, compare and improve portfolio management processes across organizations. The framework provides a holistic view on a step-by-step PPM process implementation and has proved its applicability in practice.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Batenburg R, Helms RW, Versendaal J (2006) PLM roadmap: stepwise implementation based on the concepts of maturity and alignment. Int J Prod Lifecycle Manage 1:333–351
Bekkers W, Weerd I van de, Spruit M, Brinkkemper S (2010) A framework for process improvement in software product management. Commun Comput Info Sci 99:1–12
Charmaz K (2006) Constructing grounded theory: a practical guide through qualitative analysis. SAGE, London
Cooper RG, Edgett SJ (2008) Maximizing productivity in product innovation. Res Technol Manage 51:47–58
Cooper RG, Edgett SJ (2010) Developing a product innovation and technology strategy for your business. Res Technol Manage 53:33–40
Cooper RG, Edgett SJ, Kleinschmidt EJ (2001) Portfolio management for new product development: results of an industry practices study. In: R&D management, Blackwell Publishers Ltd, pp 361–380
Cooper RG, Edgett SJ, Kleinschmidt EJ (2002) Portfolio management: fundamental to new product success. In: Belliveau P, Griffin A, Somermeyer S (eds) The PDMA ToolBook 1 for new product development, 1st edn. Wiley, New York, pp 331–364
de Reyck B, Grushka-Cockayne Y, Lockett M, Calderini SR, Moura M, Sloper A (2005) The impact of project portfolio management on information technology projects. Int J Project Manage 23:524–537
Denzin NK, Lincoln YS (2011) Handbook of qualitative research. Sage, Thousand Oaks, CA
Ebert C (2007) The impacts of software product management. J Syst Softw 80:850–861
Eisenhardt KM, Martin JA (2000) Dynamic capabilities: what are they? Strateg Manage J 21:1105–1121
Fricker S, Gorschek T, Byman C, Schmidle A (2009) Handshaking: negotiate to provoke the right understanding of requirements. IEEE Software 99
Hevner AR, March ST, Park J, Ram S (2004) Design science in information systems research. MIS Q 28:75–105
Higgins JM (1985) Strategy formulation implementation and control. Dryden Press, New York
Jagroep E, Weerd I van de, Brinkkemper S, Dobbe T (2011a) Software product portfolio management: towards improvement of current practice. http://www.cs.uu.nl/research/techreps/repo/CS-2011/2011-022.pdf. Accessed 25 March 2012
Jagroep E, Weerd I van de, Brinkkemper S, Dobbe T (2011b) Implementing software product portfolio management. In: Paper presented at the 5th international workshop on software product management, University of Trento, Trento, 30–30 August 2011
Jansen S, Finkelstein A, Brinkkemper S (2009) A sense of community: a research agenda for software ecosystems. Presented at the 31st international conference on software engineering, Vancouver, May 16–24
Killen CP, Hunt RA, Kleinschmidt EJ (2008) Project portfolio management for product innovation. Int J Qual Reliab Manage 25:24–38
Kittlaus HB, Clough P (2006) Software product management and pricing: key success factors for software organizations. Springer, Berlin
Lee SG, Ma YS, Thimm GL, Verstraeten J (2007) Product life-cycle management in aviation maintenance, repair and overhaul. Comput Ind 59:296–303
McNally RC, Durmusoglu SS, Calantone RJ, Harmancioglu N (2009) Exploring new product portfolio management decisions: the role of managers’ dispositional traits. Ind Mark Manage 38:127–143
Pfeffers K, Tuunanen T, Rothenberger MA, Chatterjee S (2007) A design science research methodology for information systems research. J Manage Info Syst 24:45–77
Rajegopal S, McGuin P, Waller P (2007) Project portfolio management. Palgrave McMillan, Hampshire
Runeson P, Höst M (2009) Guidelines for conducting and reporting case study research in software engineering. Empir Softw Eng 14:131–164
Saaksvuori A, Immonen A (2008) Product lifecycle management. Springer, Berlin
Stantchev V, Franke MR, Discher A (2009) Project portfolio management systems: business services and web services. In: Perry M, Sasaki H, Ehmann M. Bellot GO, Dini O (eds) Proceedings of the 4th international conference on internet and web applications and services, Venice/Mestre, 2009
Steenbergen M van, Bos R, Binkkemper S, van de Weerd I, Bekkers W (2010) The design of focus area maturity models. In: Winter R, Zhao JL, Aier S (eds) Global perspectives on design science research. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 6105. Springer, Heidelberg, p 317
Takeda H, Veerkamp P, Tomiyama T, Yoshikawam H (1990) Modeling design processes. AI Magazine 11:37–48
Teece DJ, Pisano G, Shuen A (1997) Dynamic capabilities and strategic management. Strateg Manag J 18:509–533
Vaishnavi V, Kuechler W (2004) Design research in information systems. Association for information systems. http://desrist.org/design-research-in-information-systems. Accessed 31 January 2011
Vischer M, Boutellier R, Breitenmoser P (2010) Implementation of a gatekeeper structure for business and technology intelligence. Int J Technol Intell Plan 6:111–127
Ward J, Peppard J (2006) Strategic planning for information systems. Wiley, West Sussex
Weerd I van de, Brinkkemper S (2008) Meta-modeling for situational analysis and design methods. In: Syed MR, Syed SN (eds) Handbook of research on modern systems analysis and design technologies and application. Idea Group Publishing, Hersey, PA, pp 38–58
Weerd I van de (2009) Advancing in software product management: an incremental method engineering approach. Dissertation, Utrecht University
Weerd I van de, Versendaal J, Brinkkemper S (2006) A product software knowledge infrastructure for situational capability maturation: Vision and case studies in product management. http://www.cs.uu.nl/research/techreps/repo/CS-2006/2006-008.pdf. Accessed 25 March 2011
Wind Y (1975) Product portfolio analysis: a new approach to the product mix decision. Wharton University of Pennsylvania. http://marketing.wharton.upenn.edu/documents/research/7401_Product_Portfolio_A_New_Approach.pdf. Accessed 20 May 2010
Yin RK (2009) Case study research: design and methods. Sage, Thousand Oaks, CA
Acknowledgements
We would like to thank all (strategic) product managers within the two Dutch software organizations for their cooperation with the interviews and the experts who have participated in the evaluation of the framework. Furthermore, we want to thank the organizers, reviewers and participants of the 5th International Workshop on Software Product Management for their suggestions and remarks.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2014 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Jagroep, E., van de Weerd, I., Brinkkemper, S., Dobbe, T. (2014). Framework for Implementing Product Portfolio Management in Software Business. In: Ruhe, G., Wohlin, C. (eds) Software Project Management in a Changing World. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-55035-5_8
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-55035-5_8
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg
Print ISBN: 978-3-642-55034-8
Online ISBN: 978-3-642-55035-5
eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)